The President of the European Parliament Roberta Metsola approved of the extension of the emblematic initiative to create a community of 10,000 ambassadors DiscoverEU Iasi-Chisinau-Odessa. The initiative became the subject of a resolution in the European Parliament and of a letter sent yesterday to Moldova by the high-ranking European official, Iurie Calestru, programs director at Moldova’s Institute for Project Development and Expertise (IDEP), stated for IPN.
Iurie Calestru said the goal of the European Parliament’s initiative DiscoverEU is for the young people to better realize the diversity of Europe and enjoy its cultural richness and to build new contacts while travelling free. The train will be the main unit of transport during the trip. The target group is the young people who have the nationality of one of the EU member states.
Referring to the progress made by this project in the Republic of Moldova, Iurie Calestru said the subject was debated by the authorities of Moldova and of the neighboring countries and also by the authorities of the EU, including the European Parliament and the European Commission.
“There were held debates in the European Parliament, sent letters to over 70 organizations, done support vox-pops. We had dialogues with three ministers of the Government of the Republic of Moldova, a secretary of state and a division head. We are discussing also with the President’s Office of the Republic of Moldova. We received a letter from the Ministers of Transport of Romania, which highly appreciated this program. At the moment, together with the Ministry of Culture, we are preparing an approach to the European Commission by which the Government of the Republic of Moldova will ask to approve this program,” stated Iurie Calestru.
The €300,000 that is to be allocated by the European Commission for the project will be transferred directly to the Railways of the Republic of Moldova, Romania and Ukraine.
When the project is launched in Moldova, the interested young people will have to register on the platform DiscoverEU and to follow several steps, including to indicate the country from which they come and where they want to go. Later, they will get travel permits for the Iasi-Chisinau-Odessa train.
In another development, in an event held to launch the European Year of Youth in the Republic of Moldova that was hosted yesterday by the State University of Moldova, the Head of the EU Delegation in Chisinau Janis Mazeiks reiterated the EU’s readiness to finance programs to support the young people in the Republic of Moldova.
“The European Year of Youth” was launched based on the European Parliament’s decision. This way, in the course of 2022, conferences, events and campaigns to inform and promote the young people through the programs Erasmus+, Creative Europe and DiscoverEU will be staged in the EU. The goal of DiscoverEU is to discover the countries of the European Union and to increase cohesion between the young people,” said the IDEP programs director.
Iurie Calestru is the co-author of the concept “Europe in the home, locality and small business of the citizen (ECIPES), combined with the market (Union Highway to Chisinau) and recreation (#DiscoverEU Iasi-Chisinau-Odessa), primarily European”, being described as the architect of the European integration of the Republic of Moldova by DG NEAR of the European Commission.
