Euro 2024: Deutsche Bahn took on too much, minister says

Germany's national rail operator, Deutsche Bahn, was out of its depth when it came to providing transport for the Euro 2024 football championship, Transport Minister Volker Wissing said on Friday.

While Deutsche Bahn is often derided for frequent delays and cancellations within Germany, the glare of an international  tournament brought the company's reputation for tardiness to a wider audience.

"In Germany, a Tournament Runs Smoothly, but the Trains Do Not," ran the headline in The New York Times soon after the tournament started.

Other international media outlets in Germany to report on the tournament have also featured stories about the delays.

Deutsche Bahn apologized to fans early in the tournament, admitting that it was "not currently offering the quality that everyone deserves."

What did the minister say?

Wissing acknowledged the problem in remarks to the Sunday newspaper Welt am Sonntag.

"What has happened to some of the fans is not in line with Germany's standards and not the standards I have for our transport infrastructure," he said.

"By announcing that 10,000 additional train seats would be made available every day during the European Championships, DB overstretched itself," Wissing said.

Though the intent was good, he added, the German rail network could not cope with this additional capacity. Frequent heavy rainfall in the first weeks of the tournament had exacerbated the situation.

"The network is not designed for such extreme weather conditions because the drainage systems cannot absorb these masses of water," Wissing said.

Railway problems delayed the arrival of the Netherlands team for their Euro 2024 semifinal against England in Dortmund on Wednesday by several hours, forcing the side to cancel a press conference.

Even tournament director Philipp Lahm missed the kickoff for the match between Ukraine and Slovakia because of a train delay.

Lack of investment to blame?

Wissing, a member of the business-focused Free Democrats, blamed the previous coalition government of Angela Merkel for failing to invest sufficiently in rail infrastructure.

"Because of the investment backlog in Germany, which I found and did not cause, we also have to ask how we can make infrastructure investments more permanent," he said. 

Deutsche Bahn infrastructure director Berthold Huber defended the rail provider.

"We really did everything we could. We postponed and canceled all construction works that were not necessary to have as little impact on the infrastructure as possible," he said in comments published by the DPA news agency.

"Flooding in southern Germany made things worse," Huber said. 

In comments to the Funke media group, he acknowledged that infrastructure was lacking.

"Our infrastructure is in a bad, even deplorable state," Huber said. "In recent decades, too little has been renewed and too little money has been invested in renovation. At the same time, it is too full — we have much more traffic than we did 10 years ago," Huber said.

Though improvements are promised, rail users are not likely to see them anytime soon. From July 15, the day after the final game of the European Football Championship, the state-owned railway company will start a massive renovation program expected to lead to significant disruption. 

Edited by: Louis Oelofse

This article was written using material from the DPA news agency.