According to various reports, the German government is planning to cut one billion euros from the budget for rail infrastructure. The money will instead go into roads. The eight German railway associations see this as a mistake and are urgently warning of the transport policy, economic and ecological consequences. Instead, they are calling for climate-damaging subsidies to be reduced.
Originally, the share of freight transport was to rise to 25 percent
Lofty goals in transport policy: by 2030, the number of passengers on the rails should double and their share of freight transport should rise to 25 percent. In order to achieve this goal and to address the enormous backlog in the renovation and expansion of the rail network, we should make significantly more money available for the rails. In the meantime, additional investments of 45 billion euros were planned by 2027! Now there is a risk of a reversal. The funds for the expansion and new construction of the rails were already cut in the current budget. By reallocating one billion euros in the 2025 budget in favor of road construction, the government is calling its own goals into question.
Dramatic consequences
The railway associations are strongly critical of these considerations. They warn of dramatic consequences for the already limited performance of the industry – due to decades of neglected infrastructure – and for the climate targets. Such a cut would be disproportionate to the actual needs of the rail infrastructure. This will mean that funds will be scarce even for the upcoming route renovations – not to mention the necessary capacity expansion in the network or the electrification of additional routes. The early increase in equity at Deutsche Bahn does not change the funding cut as such, and also leads to an even faster increase in the already high track access prices, thus worsening the chances of rail in competition with road.
The Rail Acceleration Commission had already pointed out in its final report in 2022 that more reliability in financing is urgently needed for a targeted expansion of the rail network. Without it, long-term planning is not possible. The associations are therefore calling for the introduction of a multi-year infrastructure fund for rail, as has long existed in Austria and Switzerland. This would remove rail financing from the influence of annual budgetary distribution conflicts and give the industry planning security.
Stop cutback plans
The railway associations are calling on the federal government to immediately halt its cutback plans and finally introduce long-term, secure rail financing. Budget holes can also be better plugged by reducing environmentally harmful subsidies, as the coalition agreement also provides for – in this way, more passengers, freight customers and the climate can benefit.
Source: www.transport-online.de