On September 6, 1996, the Federal Republic of Germany and Switzerland signed a state treaty. In it they met the prerequisites for efficient rail traffic in the context of the development of trans-European rail networks. While Switzerland completed its construction work with the Ceneri Base Tunnel in Ticino in September of last year, Germany is decades behind schedule. Because the promised four-lane expansion of the Rhine Valley line should not be completed until 2041 at the earliest, not least because of the resistance of numerous citizens from today's perspective.

This delay is not an isolated incident.

Other European rail projects are also not making progress because of resistance from Germany.

While Italy and Austria are building the Brenner Base Tunnel, through which high-speed trains will run from 2030, protests by citizens in Germany are preventing the four-lane expansion of the railway line through the Inn Valley, which is necessary for the Brenner project.

The new line between Berlin and Munich, celebrated at the time as the largest infrastructure project in the history of Deutsche Bahn, took 26 years to complete, held up not only by citizen protests, but also by all sorts of inconsistencies in planning and political implementation.

Homely furnished

The year 2021 has been declared the "European Year of the Rail" on the proposal of the European Commission. The development of efficient and resilient rail transport combines exemplary impulses for sustainable economic growth with climate policy requirements. Traffic accounts for 25 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the European Union; however, rail transport only contributes 0.4 percent. Freight traffic, for which the roads are still used to a considerable extent, has considerable potential. For this, however, the trains would not only have to be able to run quickly, but also at night. Many residents do not like this view.In view of its geographical location in the middle of the continent, the vision of sustainable European rail networks requires committed participation from Germany.

Hindered or delayed rail projects are just one example of a blocked republic, in which politicians who are weak in decision-making and citizens who shy away from change, but who like to moralize and tend to be slightly indignant, seem to have made themselves comfortable. This state of affairs is deceptive. It is not enough as a politician to write generous funding for public investments in an election manifesto without talking about concrete plans. If you want to significantly increase the share of renewable energies in electricity generation in Germany, you have to watch how the electricity reaches the consumer. Since generation and use are increasingly diverging geographically, powerful networks need to be expanded in a hands-on manner. But it is not that simple in practice:Rapid expansion of the grid is not making any headway because of the resistance of many people, who not infrequently demand that fossil fuels be abandoned. There is no lack of money, but there is a lack of will and political assertiveness.

It is also hard to see why politicians are watching a branch union of Deutsche Bahn paralyze rail transport in Germany to the detriment of many millions of people. A clean regulatory solution allowed more competition on the railways. The unity of the rail network and rail operations, which is mainly represented by the Union and the SPD in Germany, has long been overcome in other countries. A separation of network and rail operations opened up market opportunities for competitors of Deutsche Bahn and alternative offers for railroad users.

The wind of change that has gripped the world will not spare Germany.

The material and intellectual resources are undoubtedly available to meet the challenges of the future;

But it also requires the willingness of people to accept changes in their own lives.

The advocacy of Union Chancellor candidate Armin Laschet for a package to accelerate plans after the federal election is a consistent first step to overcome the paralysis in politics and society and to make lengthy blockades of meaningful projects more difficult.

But politics will also have to try harder to get the approval of the citizens.

While the mobilization of people for a modern and future-oriented community seems urgently overdue, Germany prefers to discuss subsidizing cargo bikes. Happy is the country that believes it can afford the provincial debates of the day before yesterday at a critical time? Then the future will take place somewhere else.