EU considers free InterRail tickets for all 18-year-olds

The EU is considering offering every 18-year-old the chance to travel across the continent by train for free under the InterRail scheme.

Up to 300,000 European residents avail of some form of the railway ticket every year.

Members of the European Parliament and representatives from the European Commission raised the idea at the European Parliament's plenary session in Strasbourg yesterday.

The current transport commissioner Violeta Bulc, a Slovenia politician who has served in the position since 2014, described it as an "excellent idea".

The free InterRail Initiative was first proposed by two German campaigners two years ago, proposing the free travel opportunity as a way to help bring the European community closer together through fostering international relations and cultural exchange.

One of those campaigners Vincent-Immanuel Herr told RTE's Morning Ireland that the idea came to him when he and a colleague were on a research trip around Europe.

“We believe that a lot more young people should have the opportunity to travel Europe, to get to explore it, to become Europeans through experience rather than just by learning through text books.”

When asked who will pay for it, he said: “Our proposal is that it will be funded by the European Commission - for example by enlarging the Erasmus budget.

“We do believe it is a complementary programme that could easily add to existing EU programmes and would vastly enrich the cultural and social outreach of the programmes through the EU.”

He added that generally speaking the response to the proposal has been positive despite the price tag of €3billion.

“On Tuesday night there was a big debate in the European Parliament with the Commissioner for Transport saying she will take it very seriously.

“She also did note that it is an expensive proposal, she and a lot of parliamentarians and frankly, a lot of youth across the continent, see just what this proposal could do for the European integration.

“If you really consider the long term consequences of such an idea and what it would do to bring together Europeans from all different countries I think €3billion a year - think it would be a little lower than that - is not really so much to pay for.

When asked if he thought this might have had an impact on the Brexit vote, he said he had not considered it, but he felt very sorry for young British and Northern Irish because if passed after the UK leaves, they would not be part of this programme.

“That would be highly unfortunate because the UK has traditionally been the country where a lot of InterRailers came from.

“This might actually be a good reason for the UK to return to the EU at some point. I really wish that young Brits and Northern Irish could participate.

“The EU has real problems, we believe that the key to solving those problems is bringing people together and having them meet face to face because Europe is about diversity.

"But the fact is that a lot of people and especially young people do not get to travel as much and explore Europe first hand and so they go to Front National and join right wing parties, there is a trend of re nationalisation all of this threatens the European future.

“If we enable all young people, independently of their socio economic and national background, to travel and to have this experience, that would be a great improvement for Europe and strengthen European integration.”