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MEPs want free rail passes for young Europeans

05 October 2016, 13:25 CET
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MEPs want free rail passes for young Europeans

Lauterbrunnental train - Photo ZachT

(STRASBOURG) - Young Europeans could be offered a free InterRail pass on their 18th birthday, helping to promote better understanding and knowledge about Europe, following a vote by MEPs on Tuesday.

The InterRail pass allows people to travel across Europe's rail network freely. Users can use it to travel wherever they like on the continent.

Some 300,000 people use InterRail passes to travel across Europe every year.

However, the cost has mounted over the decades, and the cost of an InterRail pass now ranges between EUR 20 and EUR 480 for a month-long pass.

The idea behind the proposal debated in the European Parliament is to promote a travel mode with low greenhouse gas emissions, while enabling young European to meet and get to know Europe.

Most political groups spoke out in favour of the proposal as "investing in young people', and helping to "boost the European spirit".

Some EU Member States are not members of the InterRail network: Malta, Cyprus, Estonia, Lativa and Lithuania. For them other means of transport such as buses and ferries could be considered, say MEPs.

The EU's Transport Commissioner Violeta Bulc welcomed the proposal as an "excellent idea". However, she said there would many challenges so further analysis will be required. "The Commission will carefully assess the potential costs and funding sources for this initiative as well as its administrative feasibility," she said.


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free travel

Posted by LYN WICK at 10 October 2016, 21:26 CET
Age 18 free travel through EU , desperate to get the votes of teenagers to keep the ideology of one country alive . Will teenage terrorists also have free travel to destroy the nations as they freely move from place to place? Time for a re-think as tourism avoids EU Cities due to squalor of third world emerges .Destroying nations and cultures by enforcing Mongrel DNA ,keeping austerity for everyone except the top elite that have slave labour to give them wealth beyond their dreams ,you are creating a hell on earth as cultures brought in are enforced on others ,that have their heritage destroyed .Banks robbing people of their hard earned savings and pensions ,while they fail but manage to give themselves bonuses of millions and you seem to think this diversity enforced is good for Europe ?