f.k.a. Nightjet EN 50456 / 50457 „Wawel“
Resuming the night train from Berlin to Przemysl (-Lviv), as envisaged by PKP Intercity would have been an important gap closure in the European night train network. Now PKP Intercity told German daily “Beliner Zeitung” that this is not going to happen. Why?
The train would mainly benefit the Ukrainian neighbours, who are dependent on good train connections due to the closure of the airspace and whose long-distance trains end in Przemyśl due to the track gauge change. Moreover, it could conveniently bring tourists from half of Western Europe to Western Ukraine after the Russian bombing terror ends. Lviv is only a few hours away from Przemysl. For the Polish tourist metropolises, however, the nightly arrival times are hardly attractive.
However, a night train from Berlin to Przemyśl, which connects regions with comparatively low purchasing power, will not pay for itself, if even the new European Sleeper on the much more lucrative Berlin-Amsterdam-Brussels route only succeeds with a longer run. It would therefore have to be subsidised. Where is the problem? Long-distance subsidies are common in many European countries, including Poland. However, according to current EU law, only the Polish state is allowed to subsidise long-distance transport in Poland. The rule should allow fair competition between different state-owned railway companies in their former home markets. France, for example, should not be able to help SNCF with subsidies to compete with Renfe on the Barcelona-Madrid route.
Another example of how the EU Commission likes to get in the way of its own goal to strengthen night train transport in Europe
What helps on popular high-speed lines is a nuisance on cross-border night trains. Why does the Polish taxpayer have to support Ukrainians getting to Western Europe more comfortably or Berliners discovering Lviv as a weekend destination?
This is also the reason why the night train connection Malmö-Brussels failed. The Swedish government wanted the train, but is not allowed to subsidise the German and Danish parts of the route.
So the Polish Ministry of Transport is not really to blame for the cancellation. It is simply another example of how the EU Commission, or more precisely Adina Valean’s DG MOVE likes to get in the way of its own goal to strengthen night train transport in Europe.
For further reading:
https://www.zukunft-mobilitaet.net/71672/analyse/ec-eurocity-wawel-zukunft-polen-deutschland-trauerspiel-berlin-krakau/ (developments until 2016 on this route, in German language)