Funding of Inland Waterways and Airports
Responsibilities and Funding of Inland Waterways and Airports
Investments into inland waterways are entirely the responsibility of the federal level, which
is also in charge of their administration. Because of their high ecological risk, all inland
waterway projects have to undergo a separate environmental assessment before being
included into the master plan. Due to a stagnating demand, high investment costs and
environmental concerns, only few projects are planned, most funds are made available for
reinvestment.
Unlike several other countries in the European Union with national airport ownership and
airport groups, airports in Germany are owned and regulated by the federal states and local
communities (some prominent exceptions with part privatisation are Hamburg, Frankfurt,
Düsseldorf, Hannover, Terminal 2 in Munich) (von Hirschhausen, 2004).
Planning and funding of these airports is therefore the responsibility of the states. The federal government,
however, is on the one hand involved as a shareholder in a few airport companies and, on the
other hand, is responsible for some general regulation issues. Presently there is a strong
involvement of local communities to expand many regional airports following the successful
example of Hahn airport which grew rapidly with the presence of the low-cost airline
Ryanair.
However, Heymann and Vollenkemper (2005) come to the conclusion that most
regional airports will lack the critical mass to become profitable and will therefore swallow up
subsidies in competition to attract airlines. From an economic point of view, investments into
the larger airports that are operating at capacity limits is more efficient, but a general coherent
investment strategy is made difficult by conflicting regional interests in the current
decentralised system.
The federal government developed such a integrated airport concept –
including necessary inter-modal interchanges – for the first time in the year 2000 for
consultation with the federal states which has not yet been proceeded further.
EU Forecast
euf:ba18f:11/nws-01