POLAND’s infrastructure minister, Dariusz Klimczak, and Germany’s transport minister, Patrick Schnieder, have agreed to upgrade and expand rail links between their two countries.
The agreement will act as a blueprint for joint measures to increase the number of cross-border passenger and freight connections and reduce journey times on the following routes:
- Warsaw - Berlin
- Kraków - Wroclaw - Zielona Góra - Berlin
- Gdansk - Szczecin - Berlin, and
- Przemyśl - Kraków - Wroclaw - Leipzig.
The two countries have also agreed to jointly assess the potential of planned high-speed rail projects in three corridors:
- Warsaw - Poznań - Berlin
- Warsaw - Wroclaw - Leipzig - Frankfurt am Main, and
- Warsaw - Wroclaw - Prague - Munich.
“Our goal is to create the most modern international high-speed network in the European Union - both in terms of infrastructure and rolling stock,” Klimczak said. “In 2025, the number of rail passengers between Poland and Germany exceeded 1.2 million.”
The agreement also provides for close coordination of activities within the European Union (EU) regarding infrastructure investment in the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T), including those with both civilian and military benefits, by making full use of EU financing instruments, in particular the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) in the 2028-2034 EU budget.
“We want to make rail the backbone of our shared economic region and, not least, strengthen Europe’s defence capabilities,” Schnieder explained.
