30.11.2023 | Corporate News

Joint position paper: Strengthening the Rhine as a sustainable mode of transport!

It is generally accepted: the implementation of transport infrastructure projects in Germany is taking far too long. This is particularly so in comparison to other EU countries. The Federal Government therefore enacted the ‘Law on Acceleration’ (‘Beschleunigungsgesetz’) in the autumn of 2022 for the transport sector. This should result in the time required for planning and approval for transport projects to be roughly halved. This law has now received the approval of the Federal Council (Bundesrat). Yet it has one severe flaw: the waterways system is, regrettably, not included in it.

Central component: Selected motorway expansion projects (138 in total) and the railway are assigned the status of an ‘overriding public interest’ by this law, so that they will have to be significantly prioritised by authorities and courts in future. This is a positive development in principle with regards to the development of the transport modes addressed.
However, waterway projects were the only mode of transport not to receive this status in the current law - not even individual projects that stand out in terms of their importance. For the waterways, only new regulations on the digitalisation of planning approval and authorisation procedures apply.

In the view of the organisations signing below, with this law the German Federal Government has thus wasted an opportunity to give waterways equal importance with railways and the road network – and this despite recommendations to the contrary by the majority of the federal regions (Bundesländer) in May 2023. It is common knowledge and widely emphasised that the waterways are a climate-friendly mode of transport and are also necessary for the energy transition. Above that, in the Rhineland in particular and in the adjacent Netherlands, the waterways – effectively the Rhine – is a very important economic factor. This is particularly true for the further building of the European Rhine-Alpine corridor and the associated development of the inland ports. Further information is available Here :

For this reason, an urgent appeal is being made, especially to federal politicians, to give significant priority to projects that are of considerable importance for the Rhine and its status as Europe's most important waterway, both at national and European level:
• Deepening of the shipping channel at the middle Rhine (BVWP 2030, W25)
• Deepening of the shipping channel and river bed stabilisation of the Rhine between Duisburg and Stürzelberg (BVWP 2030, W27)
• Expansion of the Wesel-Datteln canal to Marl and replacement construction of the ‘Great sluices’ (BVWP 2030, W23)

Appropriate resources must be made available for these important measures to further strengthen the system of waterways linked to the Rhine and also the economy and population of the North Rhine-Westphalian Rhineland and the Euregio area with the objective not only to secure but to amplify the significance of the Rhine as Europe’s most important waterway.

Specifically, we encourage a prioritisation through two measures:
1. Combining/concentrating the available human and financial resources for the stated projects, in particular around the Directorate General for Waterways and Shipping (Generaldirektion Wasserstraßen und Schifffahrt) at the federal level.
2. Systematic implementation of the recommendations of the “Middle Rhine Acceleration Commission” (Beschleunigungskommission Mittelrhein) from September 2023.

It is important not only from the viewpoint of the joint parties represented here but rather from an overall macroeconomic perspective that these projects are brought to concrete implementation or completion in a prompt manner. The bottleneck on the Middle Rhine in particular is considered a bottleneck, especially during the increasingly frequent low water phases, which can significantly restrict inland navigation on the entire section of the Rhine between the Netherlands, the Lower Rhine and the Rhine-Neckar conurbation, as seen most recently in 2018 and 2022. In the Federal Transport Infrastructure Plan (Bundesverkehrswegeplan, BVWP) for 2030, this measure is marked as urgent with a need to eliminate bottlenecks; of all the 1300 individual measures listed in the plan for road, rail and water, this measure has the second highest benefit-cost ratio with a value of 30.7. By comparison: The average cost-benefit ratio of all 22 waterway projects listed in the BVWP is only 6.8.

Wichtig ist auch aus volkswirtschaftlicher Betrachtung, dass diese Vorhaben zeitnah umgesetzt werden. Vor allem die Engpassstelle am Mittelrhein ist bei den tendenziell immer häufiger auftretenden Niedrigwasserphasen ein absolutes Nadelöhr. Das schränkt die Binnenschifffahrt erheblich ein, wie in den Jahren 2018 und 2022 leider zu erleben war.

Die Maßnahme ist im aktuellen Bundesverkehrswegeplan 2030 sogar mit einem vordringlichen Bedarf gekennzeichnet. Unter allen Einzelmaßnahmen auf Straße, Schiene und Wasserstraße (über 1300!) hat das Projekt das zweithöchste Nutzen-Kosten-Verhältnis! Warum also wird dieses Projekt nicht priorisiert?

An dieser Stelle appellieren die Unterzeichner deshalb noch einmal an Politik und Entscheidungsträger: Der Rhein muss als nachhaltiger Verkehrsträger überragende Bedeutung erhalten!

Das vollständige Positionspapier gibt es unten als Download.