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Denmark signals billion-kroner spending on new electric trains

Danish state-owned rail operator DSB is to purchase 100 electric trains at a cost of around 20 billion kroner, including maintenance costs.

Published: 12 April 2021 17:10 CEST

Denmark signals billion-kroner spending on new electric trains

File photo: Martin Sylvest/Ritzau Scanpix

French company Alstom has won the contract to supply the trains to Denmark, DSB and transport minister Benny Engelbrecht said at a briefing on Monday.

The contract includes the option to purchase over the initial agreement for 100 trains. DSB said it expected to eventually receive 150 locomotives.

The electric trains are expected to begin operating on Denmark’s railways from 2024.

The deal comes as a result of a 2018 political which secured the replacement of the older IC4 trains, which have been the cause of a number of technical challenges during their time in service for DSB.

Ole Birk Olesen, the former transport minister who was in the post when the 2018 deal was agreed, said he does not expect such challenges with the new trains.

“Two things will make sure we avoid problems. The people who are supplying the trains are also responsible for maintenance,” Olesen said.

“That bill will not end up in the hands of Danish taxpayers. The other thing is that these are trains which already run in Europe and which have proved to be stable,” he added.

DSB has confirmed that two new maintenance centres will be built for servicing and repairing the new trains. The two workshops will be located in Copenhagen and Aarhus.

Engelbrecht noted at the briefing that the trains, which are of the type Coradia Stream, accelerate faster and have a higher top speed than the IC4 machines.

The top speed of the Coradia Stream is 200 kilometres per hour.

READ ALSO: Danish rail company reintroduces seat reservation rule

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Greenland foreign minister axed over independence remarks

Greenland's pro-independence minister Pele Broberg (far R) with Prime Minister Mute Egede (2nd R), Danish foreign minister Jeppe Kofod and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken (2nd R) at a press briefing in Greenland in May 2021. Photo: Ólafur Steinar Rye Gestsson/Ritzau Scanpix

Prime Minister Mute Egede, who favours autonomy but not independence, said the ruling coalition had agreed to a reshuffle after a controversial interview by the minister of the autonomous Arctic territory.

Broberg was named business and trade minister and Egede will take on the foreign affairs portfolio.

The prime minister, who took power in April after a snap election, underscored that “all citizens in Greenland have equal rights” in a swipe at Broberg.

Broberg in an interview to Danish newspaper Berlingske said he wanted to reserve voting in any future referendum on independence to Inuits, who comprise more than 90 percent of Greenland’s 56,000 habitants.

“The idea is not to allow those who colonised the country to decide whether they can remain or not,” he had said.

In the same interview he said he was opposed to the term the “Community of the Kingdom” which officially designates Denmark, the Faroe Islands and Greenland, saying his country had “little to do” with Denmark.

Greenland was a Danish colony until 1953 and became a semi-autonomous territory in 1979.

The Arctic territory is still very dependent on Copenhagen’s subsidies of around 526 million euros ($638 million), accounting for about a third of its budget.

But its geostrategic location and massive mineral reserves have raised international interest in recent years, as evidenced by former US president Donald Trump’s swiftly rebuffed offer to buy it in 2019.

READ ALSO: US no longer wants to buy Greenland, Secretary of State confirms

Though Mute Egede won the election in April by campaigning against a controversial uranium mining project, Greenland plans to expand its economy by developing its fishing, mining and tourism sectors, as well as agriculture in the southern part of the island which is ice-free year-round.

READ ALSO: Danish, Swiss researchers discover world’s ‘northernmost’ island

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