GERMANY: Infrastructure manager DB InfraGO should be separated from the rest of Deutsche Bahn, Germany’s monopoly commission has said.
The financial, organisational and staffing separation of DB InfraGO is recommended in a report into the government’s special fund for rail infrastructure improvements. Germany changed its constitution in March, allowing it to raise €500bn through extra borrowing to fund defence, climate protection and infrastructure.
Other recommendations include better pacing of investment to avoid causing inflation, focusing more on digitalisation to improve efficiency, and avoiding further increases in the federal government’s own capital holding in DB.
The commission believes that increasing government capital has led to higher track access charges. It recommends that money be focused on specific projects instead.
Commenting on the report, on June 16 Martin Becker-Rethmann, President of private operators’ association Mofair, said ‘the monopolies commission has spoken, and clearly. The proposals for unbundling are not new. However, they are becoming increasingly urgent in view of the enormous financial resources that flow into the federally owned rail infrastructure. The fact that there is cross-subsidisation at the expense of taxpayers in the DB Group is very clearly demonstrated by the commission using the example of railway construction. The Federal Ministry of Transport must now comment on the committee’s proposals, and quickly, not in two years.’
