BERLIN (dpa-AFX) – The Monopolies Commission supports a push by the Union to split up Deutsche Bahn. “According to the Monopolies Commission, the advantages of a complete separation of infrastructure and transport sectors outweigh the disadvantages. The aim should be to separate the operators of the infrastructure and the users of this infrastructure from one another,” said the chairman of the Monopolies Commission, Jürgen Kühling, of the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” ( Monday). “We’ll end up with a company that’s only interested in the network being well utilized and working well.” Then there would be no more incentives to hinder competitors on the net. “In our opinion, this would change things fairly quickly for customers, other rail providers and for investments in the network.”
The Monopolies Commission advises the federal government on competition issues. The Union had previously presented a concept according to which the areas of network, stations and the energy sector should be separated from the DB Group and bundled in a federal infrastructure GmbH. According to these plans, the areas of local transport, long-distance transport and freight transport remain with the railways, which are also to be streamlined. Kühling rated the proposal as “good”. He described the infrastructure company planned by the traffic light, which is intended to merge the infrastructure divisions of the railways, as a “step in the right direction”, but only as “half a step”./tos/DP/he