Germany appears to be staging what may be the final episode in the long-running saga over the project for the new railway access lines to the Brenner Base Tunnel. The final announcement, however, comes as a cold shower. Although expectations had not been optimistic, the German Government has confirmed what had increasingly been taken for granted: construction will take longer, and the opening of the line to traffic will be delayed. Berlin is now committed to completing the works under German responsibility by 2043. This means the new Brenner corridor on the German side will become a reality only around ten years after the opening of the Brenner Base Tunnel and, above all, after Austria and Italy have completed all the works on their respective national networks. As a result of Germany’s delay, the new Brenner corridor will be unable to make full use of its additional traffic capacity, of up to 90 freight trains a day.
The German plan provides for the expansion of the existing line between Munich and Grafing and the construction of a new double-track line from Grafing to the Austrian border, via Rosenheim and Kiefersfelden. Government estimates put the cost at €11.4bn, but network operator DB InfraGo had already suggested costs could exceed €16bn. The news from Germany may come as a surprise, but only up to a point, because the premises had never been encouraging. Some observers had long predicted a decline in interest in the new Brenner railway following the profound change in the geopolitical climate after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, with Germany prioritising the integration and upgrading of railway networks with the former German Democratic Republic. In the end, however, Germany too had moved forward, albeit last and late.
The overall broad route of the new high-capacity railway between Germany and Austria was established in April 2021, after six years of difficult planning. The first result came in April 2022, when Deutsche Bahn awarded the contract to design the new line between Innleiten and Kirnstein, effectively the variant that strengthens the Rosenheim node. After two years of public debate, again in 2022, a route almost entirely in tunnel was outlined to reduce the environmental impact from Grafing, an important node south-east of Munich, to Ostermünchen, a location midway between Grafing and Rosenheim.
Although delayed, everything seemed to be moving ahead without excessive obstacles. That was until the twist in October 2024, when the Cdu/Csu parliamentary group in the German Bundestag expressed a negative opinion on the project concerning the passage through Bavaria, challenging it over its alleged negative environmental impact. For this reason, the Cdu/Csu called for an alternative project. In short, this would involve a greater number of tunnels, in order to make the route less intrusive, together with an undercrossing of the Inn river. But the logical consequence of this request would have been both an increase in construction costs and a longer implementation timetable.
What followed was, in effect, almost total paralysis. In February 2025 came yet another setback for the project for the access section towards the new cross-border tunnel. In the Landtag, the Bavarian parliamentary assembly, a cross-party political coalition rejected the project for the new line, using the cryptic formula that the new line would have to “be compatible with the needs of citizens”. However, given the opposition already shown in the past to the project, that statement sounded like a death knell. Above all, it sent a clear signal to the German Bundestag, which was due shortly to decide on the construction of the new line along the 54-kilometre route proposed by Deutsche Bahn between Munich and Kufstein.
To move things forward and call for the definition of a project that had so far failed to get off the ground, business associations directly involved also entered the field. A joint statement was signed by Confindustria Alto Adige, the Vereinigung der Bayerischen Wirtschaft (Bavarian Industry Association) and the Industriellenvereinigung Tirol (Tyrolean Federation of Industry). According to Vbw, it is unacceptable that the 55-kilometre base tunnel under the Alps, or 64 kilometres including the Innsbruck freight bypass, should be completed much faster than a section of similar length that also runs partly on the surface. According to industry representatives, if the northern access route in Germany fails to get under way, the much hoped-for shift of traffic to rail risks remaining an unachieved objective. It would also be a mistake to regard completion of the Brenner Base Tunnel as the final and conclusive stage of the new railway corridor between Italy and Germany, while leaving the access lines unchanged.
The appeal by industry fell on deaf ears. In April 2026, the Bavarian Government rejected the project proposed by DB. Local political forces called for additional sections to be built in tunnel, including the undercrossing of the Inn river north of Rosenheim, and for greater protection for the local area and residents, with the consequent postponement of the examination by the Bundestag, Germany’s federal parliament. The decision by the Bavarian authorities did not go unnoticed south of Germany, particularly in Austria and South Tyrol. Confindustria Alto Adige took a clear stance. According to its president, Alexander Rieper, there is a concrete risk that the commissioning of the Brenner Base Tunnel, and therefore the line’s full capacity, could be delayed by years. This brings us to the recent decision by the German Government, which sounds like the bell for the final lap. If there are no further requests or appeals, the project can proceed, but the finishing line now bears the date 2043.
Piermario Curti Sacchi
