The recent warnings from the steel industry about increasing disruptions in the German rail network once again highlight how urgently Germany needs to modernize its infrastructure. Today, Deutsche Bahn itself has become a risk factor for industrial competitiveness. Construction sites, outages, and bottlenecks threaten the supply of important industrial locations and thus jobs and value creation.
The steel industry in Saarland is particularly affected. Planned production is becoming increasingly difficult because raw materials and intermediate products can no longer be reliably delivered by rail. A shift to truck transport is looming. For an industrial region poor in raw materials, reliable logistics must be taken for granted. If the railway does not fulfill this task, it should at least take responsibility where it can immediately help: as a stable demand base for green steel.
The FDP Saar therefore calls on the federal government to align the procurement policy of the railway accordingly and thus ensure a market ramp-up.
The European Union has explicitly proposed lead markets for climate-friendly basic materials as an instrument. Rails, bridges, stations, and the necessary expansion of the rail network consume large amounts of steel and offer the opportunity to specifically create demand for climate-friendly produced steel.
If the federal government is already establishing a debt-financed transformation fund of historic proportions, then this money must also serve its original purpose: securing industrial assets, technological modernization, and strategic resilience.
The situation is of existential importance for Saarland. With billion-euro investments in climate-neutral steel production, the foundation for the industrial future of the region has been laid. This is the largest state funding of a single industrial project in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany. This commitment must not now be jeopardized by lack of demand, inadequate infrastructure, and political inaction.
A failure of the transformation would extend far beyond the steel industry. Thousands of jobs would be at risk – an irreversible loss for Saarland.
The state chairwoman of the FDP Saar, Angelika Hießerich-Peter, therefore calls for joint responsibility for reliable infrastructure and investment-friendly conditions. The federal and state governments must assert their influence on the railway and create a reliable demand anchor for green steel. Those who have significantly contributed to logistics problems through years of delayed investments in infrastructure should at least become part of the solution when building a reliable sales market.
At the same time, the European Emissions Trading System (ETS) must be maintained as a market-based climate protection instrument. Those investing billions in climate-friendly technologies need trust in the stability of the political framework conditions. Weakening the ETS would jeopardize future transformation projects.
For the FDP Saar, the transformation of the steel industry is not a regional issue. It is a test case of whether Germany can combine industrial strength, climate protection, and economic rationality.
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