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ICE trains of the railway in Hamburg, banners advertise the competitor Flixtrain
Photo: Jürgen Ritter / IMAGO
In the traffic light negotiations in Berlin, the Greens and the FDP are fighting against the will of the SPD, according to SPIEGEL information, to break up Deutsche Bahn in its previous form.
They are now receiving support from the Monopolies Commission, which advises the federal government.
"The new federal government should tackle the vertical separation of Deutsche Bahn AG, that is, a separation of the infrastructure from the actual rail operations," said the chairman of the Monopoly Commission, Jürgen Kühling, of the "Süddeutsche Zeitung".
"We have a major traffic turnaround ahead of us, so that would be extremely important."
The Monopolies Commission has the task of assisting the federal government on competition and regulatory issues.
In future, if the Commission had its way, there would be two independent companies.
On the one hand, Deutsche Bahn, which continues to organize the transport of passengers and goods and operate the trains.
On the other hand, there is a company that takes care of the rail network, maintains and expands it.
Deutsche Bahn and its competitors would then pay for the use of the route.
Kühling: "Such a step would be relatively easy to take."
Private operators want to break up
According to SPIEGEL information, two models were discussed in the traffic light talks that resulted in the destruction of the railway in its previous form: The DB Netze division, which maintains the rail infrastructure, the stations and the energy supply, is to be separated from the operation of the trains.
In the extreme variant, the infrastructure sector would be split off into a public society oriented towards the common good.
This left the three transport areas regional, long-distance and freight traffic at the corporate headquarters.
A moderate model provides for the formation of a holding company, under which network operations would be organized alongside train operations.
Formally, the unity of the group would be retained and the restructuring would be less time-consuming.
The Mofair alliance, in which several large private rail operators have come together for fair competition, supports the demand for the network to be separated from the DB Group.
Mofair President Tobias Heinemann announced: “In almost all network economies - gas, electricity, post, telephony, Internet, air traffic - we have long had a separation between the network as a natural monopoly and the services on the network that are provided in competition "Customers would have benefited from this," but with the railways we stopped in the 1990s. "
According to SPIEGEL information, the Social Democrats are looking critically at a break-up, not least in view of the power struggle between the competing rail unions EVG and GDL.
In the case of the EVG, which has significantly more members, one worries that the influence of the GDL could continue to grow.
apr / AFP
