It has been 12 years since the Danish-German Transport Commission was founded, but according to former director and current chairman of H.P. Therkelsen A/S in Padborg, Mogens Therkelsen, it has achieved nothing in all the years. That’s what Flensburg Avis writes.
– That is the depressing fact. Many meaningful meetings with good agendas have been held to optimize cross-border traffic, but at no point can it be demonstrated that it has been implemented by Christiansborg and the government in Berlin. They act far too slowly. The reports are gathering dust, says Mogens Therkelsen, who until three years ago sat on the commission.
First meeting in three years
It was gathered for the first time in three years on Monday in Rømø. The Danish Transport Minister Thomas Danielsen (V) and his Schleswig-Holstein colleague, Claus Ruhe Madsen (no party), participated in the meeting, which was about, among other things, train traffic, border control and freight transport.
John Skovrup, chairman of ITD, trade association for transport and logistics with an address in Padborg, admits that the transport commission cannot present concrete results.
Lots to take in
– It doesn’t make much of a difference in practice. It’s a shame, because there’s a lot to get to grips with. For example, within modular vehicle trains. Denmark, the Netherlands and Germany all have them, but the technical requirements and specifications are different. They should immediately be treated equally, but unfortunately the Danish-German Traffic Commission has no influence here either, says John Skovrup to Flensburg Avis.
Set up in 2011
The commission was set up in 2011 and had the Danish transport minister Hans Christian Schmidt (V) as the initiator. Officials from Schleswig-Holstein and Denmark sit on the commission, as well as politicians and organizational people from the transport industry.
Entire catalogs have been prepared to improve cross-border train, truck and ferry traffic.
Among other things, there are unfulfilled wishes for hydrogen trains on the west coast, battery-powered German trains that continue up into Denmark, ferry traffic on the Flensburg Fjord, a joint Danish-German railway station and much more.
