144 accelerated motorway projects and 45 billion euros for the railways in the next four years: In the transport sector, these are the results of the coalition committee that take up the most space in the public debate. However, the first topic is presented in a very abbreviated form: In fact, the traffic light coalition wants to significantly shorten the lengthy planning and approval processes for large infrastructure projects overall. In the future, only a very limited number of motorway construction projects that have been classified as urgent and are intended to eliminate bottlenecks will benefit from this.
Another number that the heads of the traffic light parties agreed on Tuesday evening should have a greater influence on future transport policy: the traffic light wants to provide an additional 45 billion euros for the rail network by 2027. This is the investment requirement that Deutsche Bahn considers urgently necessary for the maintenance and expansion of the rail network. The federal government is thus significantly increasing the payments again. So far it has been agreed that the federal government will make around 63 billion euros available by 2030. A large part of the additional expenditure is to be covered by the truck toll, which will be significantly expanded from next year. For the first time, income from the road should flow into the rail expansion.
“This is pure Switzerland”
Deutsche Bahn, its competitors and interest groups both rated the decision as groundbreaking. “The decisions really set the course for the rail network of the future,” emphasized Deutsche Bahn boss Richard Lutz. Now the prerequisites have been created to consistently modernize and digitize the outdated and fault-prone rail infrastructure. The otherwise rather critical rail transport industry was also unusually euphoric on Wednesday. “The wait was worth it,” says Tobias Heinemann, President of the Mofair Association, which represents the private railways. “After months and years of not making a decision, important steps have now been taken, above all the breaking of the previously separate financing circuits for road and rail by Transport Minister Volker Wissing.”
And the network of European freight railways even uses the great example of Switzerland; In the neighboring country, significantly more money has been invested in the rail network for decades: “This is pure Switzerland. The announced financial tailwind for the modernization and expansion of the rail infrastructure is a reaction to the failures of the past and takes a look at the opportunities for the future.”
Infrastructure in the “overriding public interest”
However, money alone is not enough, according to the competitors immediately after the praise. They insist that the Federal Ministry of Transport continue to work intensively on a new financing architecture for the German rail infrastructure and restructure the complex structure of the state-owned company. By January 2024, Wissing wants to found an infrastructure division geared towards the common good. It is intended to ensure that the funds for rail are separated more cleanly from normal rail operations. According to the proposals of the Rail Acceleration Commission, there should also be two funds through which the necessary funds will be made available in the longer term. That would give the construction industry more planning security.
The realization of construction projects could soon progress much faster than before. To this end, Wissing wants to declare large infrastructure projects to be of “outstanding public interest” so that they can be given preference over other projects. Authorities and courts must treat these projects with special priority; Consideration processes, for example with a view to environmental issues, could then turn out faster in favor of the specific construction project. This applies to all priority rail projects from the federal transport route plan, which the interest group “Allianz pro Schiene” considers a great success. Conversely, the Greens point out that Wissing’s plan to accelerate all road construction projects along these lines has failed. Instead, this should only apply to selected expansion projects such as the A 3, A 8 or A 45 – and only if the federal state concerned agrees.
The FDP also has high hopes for synthetic fuels, so-called e-fuels, in the transport sector. At EU level, she has just enforced that new vehicles powered by it will remain an alternative to e-cars after 2035. The federal government now wants to flank this back door in the ban on combustion engines with an “e-fuels strategy” and present a roadmap for the ramp-up of synthetic and climate-neutral fuels.