Berlin. In view of the extreme low water on the Rhine, the federal government is becoming more aware of investing more in the waterways that are central to the economy. “We are in a situation in which the infrastructure is extremely challenged,” said Federal Transport Minister Volker Wissing (FDP) on Wednesday, emphasizing the importance of the mode of transport. According to Wissing, the country is “urgently dependent on inland waterways” because it is able to transport large quantities. “We have to expand the inland waterways.”
“The fact that too little has been invested and modernized is taking its toll,” Wissing clarified. It has to be “worked through over the years” that has been missed. The minister was not only referring to the waterways. But what exactly does the federal government want to do now? The various traffic routes are closely interwoven.
Coal and oil have priority on the crowded rail network
The Federal Ministry of Economics is currently working with the Ministry of Transport on an ordinance to give priority to energy transport on the rail network in view of the gas shortage. But the situation on the rail network is also disastrous – with no hope of improvement. Trains wait for days or cannot run at all.
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According to the ministry’s plans, more and more trains are to run on mineral oil and coal. However, there is hardly any capacity, as the federal government’s logistics officer, Oliver Luksic (FDP), says. He points out that Deutsche Bahn’s cargo subsidiary, DB Cargo, is currently reactivating “old wagons”.
>> Also read here: Rhine level is sinking lower and lower: Bahn fails as a savior in the event of delivery bottlenecks
Grain transports from the Ukraine, but also other goods transports, will therefore find it even more difficult to reach their destination. Or as it says in a government paper on the planned ordinance: The logistics industry is “facing an enormous challenge – in view of the low water levels in the rivers and the resulting reduced transport capacities of inland waterways, heavily loaded rail corridors and a sharp increase in construction activity in the network as well as a prospective embargo-related phase-out of crude oil purchases from the Druzhba pipeline”.
It is also questionable whether the minister will actually invest more in infrastructure. So far, the draft for the 2023 federal budget provides for the opposite: the funds for waterways are to be reduced by a third. If it is more than 900 million euros this year, the Federal Ministry of Finance has earmarked less than 600 million euros for 2023. In 2021, 656 million euros were installed. Even future projects such as digital test fields at waterways and ports have to make do with less money.
The transport budget lacks money for investments
Budget politicians in the coalition support the plan to provide more money. But the question is where it will come from. The transport budget is already missing money from investments to subsidies compared to the previous year. The German Transport Forum has calculated a minus of three percent – despite the increased construction costs. “The modernization goal is missed with the present draft budget, important future investments for the transport infrastructure are not made,” criticizes Managing Director Florian Eck.
The budget for the federal trunk roads remains almost the same. Investments in rail routes are falling, as in waterways. It will be difficult for the budget holders to reallocate funds in the parliamentary process.
The failures of the past few years can be observed very well these days on the Rhine. Even after the last strong low water in 2018, in which the industry as a neighboring area had to accept damage in the billions, the federal government wanted to do more for the waterways. The federal government and industry had agreed on an eight-point plan. This also included optimizing the Middle Rhine, as well as the Lower Rhine. So far, however, nothing has happened.
>> Also read here: ZEW Indicator of Economic Sentiment clouded over again
The new government had already planned for this year to use the funds primarily “to increase economic performance”. This includes rehabilitating the Kiel Canal, adapting the shipping lanes of the seaports and investing in the Danube, Main, Moselle, Neckar and Rhine, as government documents state.
There is resistance against an improved Rhine fairway
“We are now expanding the Rhine in order to have a higher draft,” Minister Wissing has meanwhile announced. For example, rocks are to be trimmed at bottlenecks so that the ships can consistently use a depth of 2.10 meters and thus 30 centimeters more. However, the project should not be completed before 2033 at the earliest.
And there is resistance to it. Oliver Krischer (Greens), Transport Minister of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, has now declared that deepening the Rhine will not solve the problems if there is a lack of water. In view of the scarce resources, it could at best be a matter of eliminating bottlenecks. A statement from the Greens at federal level could not be obtained.
Krischer called on the federal government to finally promote the construction of ships that can also sail at low tide. “The primary concern here is the promotion of ships with a shallower draft, which must now be tackled. We have to adapt the ships to the Rhine, not the other way around.”
This requirement was also part of the eight-point plan of the then federal government in 2019. The chemical company BASF, which uses the Rhine with its headquarters in Ludwigshafen, was one of the signatories at the time. The company now charters ships that can still load and transport cargo even at low tide. A “flagship” for extreme low water has been developed and is under construction, a BASF spokeswoman said. Another special ship was designed with the shipping company HDK and is already sailing.
At least there was a slight all-clear on Wednesday. After the level of the Rhine in Emmerich had fallen below zero, the Rhine Water and Shipping Authority was confident that the level would rise again thanks to the expected rainfall. The 14-day forecast indicates that the water levels will “rise by 50 centimeters and more”. However, the office did not give the all-clear because the water levels “subsided again after the wave had passed”.
The 14-day forecast was one of the eight measures decided in 2019 to make the situation on the Rhine calculable. In addition, companies such as BASF had developed a digital early warning system with the Federal Institute for Hydrology. This has a warning period of “up to six weeks”, as the company announced.
At the same time, however, the company writes obligations to the federal and state governments in the register: “Optimization of unloading” on the Middle Rhine is “absolutely necessary to maintain the performance of the Rhine as a transport route”, as a spokeswoman explained. “This is the only way to ensure the competitiveness of the location in the long term.”
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