Only “appearance of reform”
Court of Auditors reprimands Wissing for dealing with the railway
May 10, 2024, 2:53 p.m
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The federal government actually has a lot planned for the railway. But according to a report, the strained budget situation is slowing down the expansion of the rail network. Some urgent projects will therefore be cancelled. Meanwhile, the Federal Audit Office is taking a hard line against Transport Minister Wissing.
According to a “Spiegel” report, the Federal Audit Office is critical of Federal Transport Minister Volker Wissing’s dealings with Deutsche Bahn. The magazine quoted from a report by the auditors for the Bundestag that previous efforts to improve the railway are only an “appearance of a reform”. The reason is also that the minister’s representations are “partly incomplete”. They “do not convey an accurate picture of DB AG’s difficult economic and operational situation.”
To reform the railway, the federal government founded a new company for the operation, maintenance and expansion of the infrastructure. InfraGo is still part of the DB Group, but is intended to act on a “non-profit” basis. The federal government is represented on the supervisory board. The Federal Audit Office does not consider this to be sufficient “to strengthen the federal government’s ownership role in DB AG and to be able to better represent the federal government’s interests,” the “Spiegel” continued to quote from the report. The founding of InfraGo does not contribute to the urgently needed modernization of the group. It only solidifies a “central deficiency in the previous group structure”.
For years there has been a debate about unbundling the DB Group, which some have called for in view of the massive problems. Among other things, the Monopolies Commission, an advisory body to the federal government, had called for infrastructure management to be strictly separated from rail operations. The Court of Auditors apparently sees it that way too: the problems persisted “as long as the infrastructure division is part of the DB-AG Group”.
Report: There is a lack of money for rail network expansion
The tense financial situation of the federal government will also most likely mean that the federal government will have to say goodbye to its goals for expanding the rail network. A letter from the Ministry of Transport, which is available to “Spiegel”, shows which urgent projects there could be a lack of money for in the future.
Affected, among other things, are the connection of the Fehmarnbelt Tunnel between Germany and Denmark, the new construction of sections of the Rhine Valley Railway between Karlsruhe and Basel with a tunnel in Offenburg, the long-planned expansion of a main axis in the Ruhr area for the Rhine-Ruhr Express in Duisburg and one Freight train route from Uelzen to Halle.
The connection of the Gäubahn in Baden-Württemberg via the newly built Pfaffenstieg Tunnel to the new Stuttgart underground station is also subject to change, as is the expansion of a railway line from Munich via Mühldorf to the Austrian border and the electrification of the line from Weimar to Gößnitz via Gera.
A so-called construction financing agreement is planned for these projects, according to the internal document from the Ministry of Transport. So in principle it could be built. However, a “final decision on this” will only be possible once the budgets for 2025 and 2026 have been drawn up. Given the current budget situation and the Ministry of Finance’s savings requirements, financing is hardly realistic, according to “Spiegel” information.
Long-distance transport serves fewer cities
However, fewer German cities are connected to Deutsche Bahn’s long-distance services this year than last year. This emerges from a response from the Federal Ministry of Transport to the left-wing budget politician Victor Perli. Accordingly, ICE and IC trains no longer stop in Northeim (Lower Saxony), Ibbenbüren (North Rhine-Westphalia), Bebra (Hesse), Rastatt (Baden-Württemberg) and Leverkusen-Mitte (North Rhine-Westphalia), among others. According to the information, there are additional long-distance transport stops in Ludwigsstadt (Bavaria), Rudolstadt (Thuringia), Eichenberg (Hesse) and Heilbronn (Baden-Württemberg).
The last two cities are only served intermittently by long-distance traffic due to construction work. The ministry writes that the connection to these train stations is ensured by a “good local transport service”. However, the traffic light coalition’s goal of offering more long-distance transport across the area is likely to be difficult to implement. The reason for this is the rising prices for infrastructure. They could force Deutsche Bahn to discontinue uneconomical intercity connections. Left-wing politician Perli criticizes: “Given this miserable development, how can we succeed in convincing more people to take the train? Transport Minister Wissing must finally present a concept on how he wants to strengthen connections to rural regions.”