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The free rail pass program for young Europeans, which has officially become part of the European Union budget for the next seven years, will be relaunched with a budget of around 400 million euros, said Socialist MEP István Ujhelyi, DiscoverEU mentor. During the pilot period of the program, more than 350,000 young Europeans applied for the opportunity, more than 70,000 of whom received free rail passes.
The basic idea for “FreeInterRail” comes from two young German activists who, a few years ago, proposed that the European Union surprise all young Europeans with a free rail pass on their 18th birthday. The proposal was welcomed by István Ujhelyi.
In recent years, hundreds of young Hungarians have been able to seize the opportunity and there have been almost ten times as many season ticket applications available in Hungary.
Applications for the free one-month European rail passes will begin on the DiscoverEU website on Thursday noon.
The MSZP politician added that he has long urged the Hungarian government to join the program, and the state budget guarantees free rail passes for young people up to the age of eighteen every year.
According to Ujhelyi, this would cost around 9 billion guilders a year. Ujhelyi said the government has not yet responded to any of his proposals in this regard, but several municipalities have already joined the program and have bought free passes for local youth with their own budgets.
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