“They think it’s all over!” – It is now, for Germany’s reputation for ruthless efficiency
“We’ll make the trains run on time” – Ah, hang on, wait….. And wait, and wait, and wait…
Montage © Facts4EU.Org 2024
Sadly football’s NOT coming home, but spare a thought for English fans who are trying to do just that
A great many readers will still be getting over England’s defeat by Spain in the final of the Euros on Sunday. (This does not apply to Scottish readers, who we are sorry to say will all have been delighted.)
In an effort to take English readers’ minds off this disappointment, Facts4EU.Org looks at the national humiliation suffered by the hosts of the championship – the once mighty Germany.
Following England’s defeat in the Euros final, here’s some schadenfreude to cheer you up
The national humiliation we refer to is not the fact that the German football team was knocked out in the quarter-finals. The real humiliation for that whole country – football fans or not – has been its performance on the tracks, not the on the pitch.
For the duration of Euro 2024 there have been an increasing number of condemnatory articles in the German press about the failure of its state-owned railway, DeutscheBahn. to deliver anything remotely resembling an adequate service to the hundreds of thousands of fans who descended on Germany for the tournament. (Let alone to its own citizens trying to get around for work or pleasure.)
“They think it’s all over” – It is now, for Germany’s reputation for ruthless efficiency
Since 2015, following Angela Merkel’s disastrous and unilateral “All welcome here” message to the world’s migrants, Germany has been struggling on many levels.
Its economy is in trouble, its coalition government is at loggerheads with itself, the right-wing AfD party is now the second most popular and is ahead of the Chancellor’s own party, and the migration crisis is causing major problems across the nation.
“We’ll make the trains run on time” – Ah, hang on, wait….. And wait, and wait, and wait…
On top of all of Germany’s other problems, the Euro 2024 tournament brought international focus to bear on the terrible state of Germany’s national rail network. Hundreds of thousands of German and international fans – and many teams – tried to use this to get around Germany for matches in cities across the country. The reaction from them has not been good for Germany’s reputation.
For years ordinary German people have been complaining increasingly that DeutscheBahn simply is not fit for purpose, following years of neglect and under-investment. Now the world has seen what they are complaining about.
"Our infrastructure is in a bad, even deplorable state," says DeutscheBahn’s own Infrastructure Director
In an interview with Germany’s massive Funke Media a week ago, Berthold Huber was frank:
"Our infrastructure is in a bad, even deplorable state. 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."
Even Germany’s Transport Minister is scathing of his own network
Transport Minister Volker Wissing did not pull his punches in the middle of the football tournament, telling Germany’s top 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. By announcing that 10,000 additional train seats would be made available every day during the European Championships, DeutscheBahn overstretched itself.”
It seems that part of the problem was down to ‘the wrong type of rain’
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the German Minister invoked climate change as part of the reason for all the delays and cancellations.
"The network is not designed for such extreme weather conditions because the drainage systems cannot absorb these masses of water."
Remember England’s magnificent semi-final victory over the Netherlands? It nearly didn’t happen
Some readers will have fond memories of England’s semi-final victory over the Netherlands which won them a place in the final. At one stage doubts started to be raised over whether this match would actually take place. The Dutch team had planned to travel to Dortmund by train. After many hours of cancellations and delays, the Dutch were eventually forced to charter a jet to get them there.
Even the German Euro 2024 Tournament Director Philipp Lahm was caught up in all the chaos. He missed the kick-off for the match between Ukraine and Slovakia because of DeutscheBahn.
Observations
For the Germans, things can only get worse
For the duration of the tournament, DeutscheBahn postponed or cancelled all construction and improvement works. This does not appear to have made any difference, but possibly things would have been even worse had they not done that.
As from yesterday (15 Jul 2024), however, a large renovation programme was set to start. For the Germans, things are set to get a lot worse.
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[ Sources: DeutscheBahn | German media ] Politicians and journalists can contact us for details, as ever.
Brexit Facts4EU.Org, Tues 16 Jul 2024
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