Anyone who travels a lot within Europe knows that you don’t always need an airplane to get from A to B. Most European capitals are excellently connected – for example Berlin and Paris with the night train, which was taken out of service in December but is set to make its comeback in March 2026. Another favorite is the connection with the cultural train from Berlin to Wroclaw (Poland), which will also be canceled from next month – so far without any prospect of a resumption. Even though we are facing a number of rail service cuts, there is also good news: The EU Commission is planning fast trains in Europe, which should halve travel times. This means that in future, you will no longer need seven hours to get from Berlin to Copenhagen, but only four. Read on to find out what this will actually look like!
Europe is to be more closely connected than ever before by 2040. With the introduction of high-speed trains, it will seem as if the other EU countries are suddenly moving closer to us – but in reality, travel times will simply be drastically reduced. The European Commission wants to promote high-speed rail transport in order to achieve this goal. Specifically, a basic speed of 200 km/h is to be introduced in the European core network. The differences in journey times will be particularly noticeable in Eastern and Southern Europe: The journey time between Madrid and Lisbon, for example, is to be reduced from nine to just three hours and the route between Budapest and Bucharest could in future be covered in 6 hours and 15 minutes instead of 15 hours. Fast trains are thus set to become an attractive alternative to short-haul flights.
The project sounds more than tempting – but it needs time to prepare. Implementation is not planned until 2040 and, of course, delays cannot be ruled out for a project of this magnitude. The EU Commission is expecting high costs of around 345 billion euros for this ambitious plan. At speeds of well over 250 km/h, the total expenditure could even rise to as much as 546 billion euros – and the project would be delayed until 2050. Public funding alone will not be enough. The EU is therefore relying on mixed funding from EU subsidies, private investment and loans from the European Investment Bank and national development banks.