The Robert Schuman Institute has no funds of its own, we finance our activities exclusively from donations, grants and membership fees. For responsible financial administration of such funds RSI provides financial support of international travel costs only when necessary, and only supports the most economic options. Given that our participants are young people, receiving an opportunity of free of charge training and education at RSI, we ask them to understand the limits of how we can help further. As a basic rule, participants should have their travel costs be paid by their delegating party, or by themselves. The RSI however may be able to make a contribution on the official request from the delegating organization. This should be included in the first party reference letter that is submitted as part of the application package.
General guidelines on what can be supported:
Sponsored participants arriving from a one-way distance of less than 1,000 km from the venue of the training (Budapest ) should take surface transportation (second class train / bus, car) at the cheapest fare. If a sponsored participant decides to come by car, contribution will be given to costs, the equivalent to the price of second class train / bus ticket at the cheapest fare. If there is more than one participant coming with the same car, the equivalent of two such tickets will be reimbursed, but not more than that even if there are five people traveling together. Reimbursing flight tickets is only possible if a participant comes from a one-way distance of over 1,000 km from the venue of the training (Budapest).
Exceptions:
taking a flight is not more expensive than the cheapest available surface transport surface transport is not available for traveling to/from the course in the required time It is still possible that other commitments of a participant make it necessary to take the faster air travel option. In such cases RSI can contribute to the costs equal to the value of a second class train or bus ticket (at the cheapest fare), the rest of the air ticket price has to be covered by the participant or the delegating party.
Travel standards by country:
Albania: airplane
Belarus: train or tourist bus when available
Bosnia-Herzegovina: train
Croatia: train, from Dalmatia bus to Zagreb and from there train to Budapest
FYROMacedonia: train
Kosovo: airplane
Moldova: airplane
Montenegro: train
Serbia: train, if necessary bus to Belgrade and from there train to Budapest
Ukraine: for western Ukraine and Kyiv train, for south and east Ukraine domestic flight to Lviv or Kyiv and from there train to Budapest
If there is a cheaper different option available, that is always possible to support and is actually preferred.
Procedure of buying a sponsored ticket:
Normally RSI reimburses sponsored travel costs during the course, in EUR, and does not pay them in advance or books them directly. Sponsored participants should only buy a concrete ticket after the exact arrival and departure schedule as well as the final price is communicated to RSI and RSI authorizes this option. However, participants taking an airplane are strongly encouraged to make reservations as early as possible to keep costs low.
When paying for a ticket, it is necessary to ask for an invoice, to the participant’s own name. We can reimburse ticket and visa costs only if there is an invoice. This invoice should be preferably in EUR. This is in the best interest of participants, so as to avoid any unnecessary losses based on the official Hungarian exchange rates. If the invoice is in the national currency, the EUR reimbursement will be based on the actual Hungarian exchange rates at the bank of RSI.
Refunding RSI travel support
It is assumed that our partner parties delegate promising, motivated young politicians of potential and integrity who are able and willing to fulfill the conditions of fruitful participation in RSI events. This is confirmed by the party’s reference, and the acceptance of conditions in it. It is a basic condition of every RSI event that participants must attend it from the very beginning to the very end. This is agreed by selected participants who accept invitations. We also ask delegating parties to do so, in order to make it clear that priority should be given to course obligations over other possible local duties. Should a participant still fail to complete all the agreed courses, all travel support given by RSI to date must be returned. In case a participant does not show up for an event and does not cancel in writing until a given deadline, the cost of the first hotel night will also be charged, since RSI is not able to pay costs of persons who are not participating in the project according to the criteria. The same applies in the unfortunate case if a participant has to be expelled from a course. In such cases delegating parties will be asked to return the above mentioned sums. They will receive an invoice from RSI, as organizations sharing responsibility for the fulfillment of conditions.
