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STRIKES

Who’s affected by Thursday’s transport strikes in North Rhine-Westphalia?

Ahead of talks over pay and conditions for local transport workers, union Verdi has called on bus and train drivers in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia to stage a walkout on Thursday.

Published: 15 February 2024 13:38 CET
Strike banner in Kiel Schleswig-Holstein
A poster announcing a Verdi strike outside a bus station in Kiel, Schlewsig-Holstein. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Axel Heimken

The strike, which comes ahead of the second round of talks between Verdi and transport chiefs, will run all day and impact all major cities in North Rhine-Westphalia.

“The strike is on everywhere,” Peter Büddicker from the Verdi’s NRW branch told Tagesschau on Thursday. 

However, transport services should be back to normal by Friday. 

What services are affected?

The vast majority of local transport companies in NRW will be hit by the all-day strike action on Thursday, with cities like Düsseldorf, Dortmund, Cologne, Bonn, Bielefeld, Essen, Wuppertal and Münster all affected.

In Bonn, for example, the SWB, SWBD and SWBV will see severe disruption, along with the DSA in Dortmund, the Rheinbahn AG in Düsseldorf and the Kölner Verkehrs-Betriebe Aktiengesellschaft (KVBA) in Cologne. 

READ ALSO: Why Germany is being hit by strikes almost every day

A number of smaller cities and towns across the state will also see their transport services come to a halt, including Hamm, Solingen, Bochum, Krefeld and Leverkusen.

Buses, trams and underground services will all be impacted. 

A full list of the transport companies affected by the strike can be found here on the Tagesschau website, and regular updates and information on alternative routes will be provided on operators’ apps and websites throughout the day. 

What services aren’t affected?

Since regional and S-Bahn services are run by Deutsche Bahn rather than local transport operators, this latest round of strike action won’t affect RE, RB and S-Bahn rail services. Intercity rail services like ICE, IC and EC trains are also excluded.

A handful of transport companies in NRW are also excluded from the walkouts, including ASEAG in Aachen, RVK in Cologne, RSVG in Troisdorf, OVAG in Gummersbach and Munster’s WVG Group. 

That means that in cities like Munster a partial service will be running, with the Stadtwerke Münster out of operation while WVG runs. The situation is similar in Cologne, where KVBA workers are on strike but RVK workers aren’t. 

What impact are the strikes having? 

According to estimates by the Association of German Transport Companies, local transport companies in NRW transport an average of around five million passengers per day.

Since these are usually return journeys, it’s likely that around 2.5 million people travel daily on public transport in the region, many of whom were likely affected by Thursday’s industrial action.

In some cases, employees are given permission to work from home on strike days. However, compulsory school attendance remains in place for children.

Verdi is currently in the process on negotiating a new collective agreement for employees in local transport companies. Friday will see the second round of talks following the opening of negotiations in January.

READ ALSO: Where are the next public transport strikes taking place in Germany?

Among other things, the services union is pushing for better pay and more days off for workers. 

Strikes are also due to be held in Lower Saxony on Monday and Tuesday. 

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TRAVEL NEWS

EES: Why is the UK-France border such a problem for the EU’s new biometric passport checks?

The EU's proposed new system of passport checks known as the Entry & Exit System will apply to all of the Bloc's external borders - so why are most of the warning lights coming from the France-UK border? And is it really Brexit related?

Published: 8 May 2024 12:03 CEST
EES: Why is the UK-France border such a problem for the EU's new biometric passport checks?

The EU’s new Entry & Exit System of enhanced passport checks – including biometric checks like facial scans and fingerprints – is due to come into effect later this year.

You can read a full explanation of how it works HERE and see our frequently-asked-questions section HERE, including information for non-EU citizens who are resident in an EU country and the system for dual nationals.

EES will apply to the whole of the EU and Schengen zone and will apply at external borders, but not for travel within the Schengen zone itself (eg between France and Germany or Italy and Switzerland).

You can hear the team at The Local discuss the latest developments on EES on the Talking France podcast – listen here or on the link below

The EU has plenty of external borders from land borders such as the Greece-Albania border to the airport frontiers that occur when, for example, an American flies into Italy.

But while several nations have expressed concern that their infrastructure is not ready, the loudest and most dire warnings are coming about the border between France and the UK.

READ ALSO Travellers between France and UK could face ’14-hour queues’ due to new passport system

So why is this border such a problem?

The problems with the UK France border are threefold; volume of traffic, space and juxtaposed borders.

Volume of traffic – This is simply a very busy border crossing, about 60 million passengers a year cross it by ferry, plane, Channel Tunnel or Eurostar. For people travelling from the UK, especially those crossing by car on the ferry or Channel Tunnel, France is simply a stopping point as they head into Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands or to Spain or Italy.

Around 70 percent of those passengers are British, which means they will have to do the EES checks.

READ ALSO Could the launch of EES be delayed again?

Space – The second problem is to do with the space that is required to process all those passengers as several crossing points – especially the Port of Dover and the embarkation area at London St Pancras – are quite crowded and for various reasons don’t have room to expand.

Extra infrastructure is required to complete EES pre-registration checks and this will be difficult to physically fit into some crossing points – for context the EES pre-registration area for the Channel Tunnel at Coquelles covers 7,000 square metres.

Juxtaposed border controls – the UK-France border is also unique within the EU because of its juxtaposed border controls, which are the result of a bilateral agreement between France and the UK known as the Le Touquet agreement.

Juxtaposed border controls exist at Paris Gare du Nord and London St Pancras for those using the Eurostar, the ports of Dover and Calais and the Channel Tunnel terminals at Folkestone and Coquelles – these mean that when you leave the UK you get your passport checked by both British and French authorities, and then there are no passport checks when you arrive in France – and vice versa.

This means that if there is a hold-up at one border control it has a knock-on effect on the other and means that very long queues can quickly build up – as has been seen several times at the Port of Dover since Brexit.

The Brexit effect

Part of the problem with the UK-France border is that discussions about EES began while the UK was still a member of the EU, and then the conversation changed once it had left.

However, even when it was in the EU, the UK never joined the Schengen zone so there were always passport checks for travellers between France and the UK.

The difference is that EU citizens are exempt from EES – so those 70 percent of passengers crossing that border who are British would have been exempt from the changes had it not been for Brexit.

French and other EU citizens remain exempt and will not have to complete EES pre-registration once the system is up and running. 

Therefore EES would have only applied to a tiny minority of travellers entering the UK – for example American tourists arriving into London – which logistically would be a much easier challenge, especially for the Port of Dover whose customers are overwhelmingly either British or EU nationals.

What about Ireland?

Had it not been for Brexit, the UK would have been in a similar situation as Ireland is now – since Ireland is a member of the EU but not the Schengen zone.

Under the new system Ireland will not use the EES system at its own borders and will carry on manually stamping passports.

However, anyone who has an Irish passport will be exempt from EES when they are travelling within Europe – for dual nationals this only applies of they are travelling on their Irish passport.

READ ALSO Your questions answered about the EU’s new EES system

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