Ramelow advocates radical reforms for the railway
During the EM, it will once again be apparent: The German Railways are dysfunctional. Thuringia's Prime Minister Ramelow speaks of a "system of chaos". The railways own 600 companies, are unreliable, and incur billions in losses. He sees only one consequence.
Thuringia's Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow has called for radical reforms in the face of the German Railways crisis. "Billions of euros in losses have been recorded, at the same time several million passengers have been lost - and that during the Football European Championship, during which many trains were overcrowded and others canceled," the Left politician told the Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland (RND). "The railway is a system of chaos, whose acceptance is increasingly disappearing." His grandfather used to say: "Punctual as the German Railways." That's only a joke today.
The Left politician proposed a strict separation of network and operation: "The German Railways are a stock corporation and should be made stock exchange-listed. In other words, profit-oriented! The new network company has, however, received the letters GO for that - community-oriented. But a community-oriented stock corporation, which is to transfer profits to the federal budget, is a contradiction in itself. So we need a radical separation of network and operation. The network must be organized and systematically modernized as a charitable foundation. That will take at least ten years. The Ampel invests a lot of money, but not systematically. That won't work."
Moreover, the railway must be untangled, Ramelow said. Currently, there are 630 railway companies. Of these, 600 belong to the railway conglomerate. "That makes no sense and has nothing to do with lean management," so the Prime Minister. The German Railways have a constitutionally guaranteed task in the service of the population. They are not there to make international business - like with the logistics company Schenker.
"Therefore, my proposal is to bring all railway tasks of the DB AG, including all 600 subsidiaries, into a public law institution and to bundle and dismantle the railway operation through this public law institution in the areas of passenger and freight traffic." Investments could be financed through a cut in the company car privilege. It will "be time for a railway that you can rely on and be proud of again".
Bodo Ramelow, the Prime Minister of Thuringia, criticized German Railways' performance during the EM, labeling it as a "system of chaos" with substantial losses and decreasing acceptance among passengers. He advocated for a radical separation of the network and operation, suggesting that the network should be operated as a charitable foundation, while the operation should be profit-oriented through a stock exchange-listed company.
