Germany news: Train station alcohol ban comes into force
0 / 94
English
中文
Consuming alcohol is no longer permitted at train stations in Germany, to improve the lot of travelers and staff alike. Coalition talks are restarting in Berlin, and an inmate is loose in Essen.
（暂无翻译） （暂无翻译）
Below, you can read our roundup of headlines across Germany from Thursday, October 15.
（暂无翻译）
Tired of missing our real-time updates? Click hereto add DW as a Preferred Source on Google Lawmakers from Germany's Left Party turned their backs on a far-right AfD politician after he questioned the historical consensus that Germany had committed genocide in what is now Namibia.
（暂无翻译） （暂无翻译）
The protest came during a heated debate over reparations for descendants of the victims. Germany's government acknowledged the genocide in 2021, but parliament has yet to pass its own formal recognition resolution.
（暂无翻译） （暂无翻译）
A formal apology by Germany's president is also still pending. A proposed deal with Namibia includes €1.1 billion in development aid over 30 years, but no legally binding reparations. The agreement remains unsigned and controversial among descendants of the victims. Germany and France reached a provisional agreement on Thursday that backs a scaling down of European emissions rules for new cars largely in line with the wishes of German carmakers, according to a draft document seen by news agencies.
（暂无翻译） （暂无翻译） （暂无翻译） （暂无翻译）
The provisional agreement centers on a European Commission proposal last year backing off on banning new internal combustion engines by 2035, the new deal instead calls for a 90% drop in CO2 emissions from 2021 levels.
（暂无翻译）
The remaining 10% was to be covered by compensatory measures like low-carbon steel and alternative fuels.
（暂无翻译）
Now, the new agreement would scrap those measures, calling for the 10% to be compensated by manufacturers.
（暂无翻译）
Europe's car industry, led by Germany, has been struggling in recent years amid the switch to electric vehicles and competition from China.
（暂无翻译）
This has led the EU to come up with ways to increase competitiveness while still maintaining pledges to reduce emissions. Germany and France have disagreed on how to do this. The draft agreement still needs official confirmation.
（暂无翻译） （暂无翻译） （暂无翻译）
Then it faces approval by Germany's governing coalition led by the Christian Democrats (CDU), who have pushed for more watered-down emissions regulations than their Social Democratic Party (SPD) partners. Then Germany and France will still need to convince other EU members and the European Parliament for the agreement to take effect.
（暂无翻译） （暂无翻译）
To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video The Bundestag has lifted immunity of a center-left Social Democrat (SPD) lawmaker, seemingly as part of a corruption probe pertaining to a tender for a hospital site in the northern city of Hanover.
（暂无翻译）
Adis Ahmetovic, 33, had his immunity lifted so as to authorize searches requested by investigators.
（暂无翻译）
He is one of three SPD politicians from the Hanover area under investigation in connection with the site in Lehrte, near Hanover.
（暂无翻译）
The Hanover Public Prosecutor's Office said Ahmetovic's Bundestag office and three apartments were searched on Wednesday after his immunity was lifted.
（暂无翻译）
The case came to fairly considerable prominence earlier in the year, because one of these politicians is Steffen Krach.
（暂无翻译）
Krach was the lead SPD candidate for last month's state election in Berlin, and news of him being under investigation surfaced at the height of the campaign.
（暂无翻译）
This may well have helped the Left Party and the Greens to fare better than predicted in the poll, while the SPD slumped to 12% — by far the party's worst ever result in the capital.
（暂无翻译）
Alcohol bans came into force at all German train stations when the clock struck midnight and Thursday began.
（暂无翻译）
All the roughly 5,700 stations across Germany, including the train platforms themselves, are now booze-free zones.
（暂无翻译）
Pubs, restaurants and other such hospitality businesses at train stations are exceptions to the rule, though, and can still serve alcohol.
（暂无翻译）
Consumption of alcohol will also remain legal on many trains, with long distance ones still serving beers and other tipples at their on-board bistros.
（暂无翻译）
Rail operator Deutsche Bahn says the change aims to make train stations safer and cleaner, and more pleasant places to spend time waiting for a (who knows, perhaps delayed) train. Various misdemeanors and incidents had prompted discussions on alcohol at stations over the years, but two this year in particular brought the issues into sharp focus.
（暂无翻译） （暂无翻译）
A 26-year-old security staff member for Deutsche Bahn was beaten and kicked by a drunken passenger when trying to check their ticket.
（暂无翻译）
During the struggle the train door buckled and opened, and the Bahn employee fell from the train, suffering severe injuries.
（暂无翻译）
Earlier in the year, a train conductor was killed when attacked by a man without a valid ticket. The new rules are part of DB's house rules, rather than being criminal law — meaning that at least in the first instance it is a matter for Bahn security staff to enforce rather than police. "The alcohol consumption ban applies at stations every day, also on days with major events," Bahn spokeswoman Anja Bröder said when asked about often beer-fueled train usage days, like when football fans flock to Bundesliga games.
（暂无翻译） （暂无翻译） （暂无翻译）
Around 40 stations piloted the project for some time prior to its implementation, including some of the largest like Cologne, Munich, Hamburg and Berlin.
（暂无翻译）
DB says it has had positive experiences with the early experiments, reporting more peaceful stations with less litter and travelers and employees saying they preferred the atmosphere.
（暂无翻译）
A federal group dedicated to helping the homeless has criticized the measure, however, saying that for homeless people with addiction illnesses, train stations often served as "important, weatherproof and comparatively safe places" to shelter. A spokeswoman also told the Rheinische Post newspaper that if they were driven from sites like train stations, it would be harder for social workers to locate them.
（暂无翻译） （暂无翻译）
German television's most famous orange mouse, WDR's eponymous star of the long running "Sendung mit der Maus" (Show with the mouse), stands in statue waving to whoever walks by the station's headquarters in Cologne. And after a torrid few years for the celebrity rodent — in which he was kidnapped one year and set on fire by unknown assailants the next — now the mouse has been joined by its partners in crime the elephant and the duck, as was the case as the long-running show evolved.
（暂无翻译） （暂无翻译）
"Life is always much better with friends," WDR Director General Katrin Vernau said at Thursday's unveiling.
（暂无翻译）
"Together the mouse, duck and elephant stand for a children's program that has conveyed knowledge for decades explaining the world and encouraging children to ask questions."
（暂无翻译）
The children's show "Die Sendung mit der Maus" has been on WDR on Sunday mornings since 1971. The show has various educational and entertainment elements and has had an array of presenters over the years, but the animated shorts featuring the mouse that separate the segments are probably the best known parts.
（暂无翻译） （暂无翻译）
These short segments of perhaps 30 seconds of 2D animation never involve the mouse, or its accomplices the duck and the elephant who joined later, speaking.
（暂无翻译）
Typically they interact and try to solve some kind of problem, often seeking a reward, by experimentation and trial and error.
（暂无翻译）
Police in Essen continued their search for a 34-year-old prisoner and the two men who violently freed him during a doctor's visit the previous day.
（暂无翻译）
Officers searched parts of the city center, with the help of tracking dogs trying to catch the fugitives' scent.
（暂无翻译）
Two men are thought to have attacked and tied up the prison officers accompanying the inmate on his medical visit, before the three of them split up and fled the scene.
（暂无翻译）
Police warned at the time that it "could not be ruled out" that they might be armed.
（暂无翻译）
The 34-year-old was in the JVA Essen prison on drugs and assault convictions. Potato prospects this year are poor after the prolonged hot and dry weather in the summer, according to the government's statistics office Destatis.
（暂无翻译） （暂无翻译）
"The 2026 potato harvest will be considerably more meager than the previous year, according to forecasts, which will have consequences for the prices of potatoes at various economic levels," Destatis wrote.
（暂无翻译）
In September, Destatis said, potatoes were 11.3% more expensive than in the same month in the previous years.
（暂无翻译）
For frozen produce like chips/fries, the difference was less pronounced at 4.7%.
（暂无翻译）
But these figures vastly outstripped both overall year-on-year inflation for September, 3.35%, and particularly the rate of inflation for food and drink products, 0.4%. Destatis estimated that the 2026 harvest would be almost exactly one-quarter smaller than the previous year — partly because of fewer hectares being used to grow spuds but in larger part because of reduced average yields on the farmed soil in use.
（暂无翻译） （暂无翻译）
Forecasts predict a yield of around 38.9 metric tons per hectare this year, compared to 46 tons per hectare in 2025.
（暂无翻译）
A court in Hamburg has sentenced two men convicted of planning attacks in Germany on behalf of Iran's secret service.
（暂无翻译）
One was given an eight-and-a-half-year prison sentence, while the other was ordered to spend four-and-a-half years behind bars on charges of espionage and attempted murder.
（暂无翻译）
Among others, they were accused of plotting to attack Josef Schuster, the president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany and Volker Beck, a Green party politician and president of the German-Israeli society.
（暂无翻译）
Beck hailed the verdict online. Choo-choo!
（暂无翻译）
All aboard the October 15 German rail news express, stopping wherever and whenever the conductor asks politely. Ansbach train station in northwestern Bavaria, west of Nuremberg, has been named the finest in all the land.
（暂无翻译） （暂无翻译）
The "Pro Rail Alliance" travel organization's special jury named Ansbach the Bahnhof des Jahres 2026, saying that after a renovation process lasting several years, it now "receives travelers in a light and friendly atmosphere." They praised its well-lit waiting area, easy accessibilty by car, bike or bus, and ample storage for bicycles.
（暂无翻译） （暂无翻译）
They also noted its practical connection to the wider public transport network.
（暂无翻译）
"Ansbach's bus station can be found right outside the train station building, and so can be reached with the greatest possible ease," the jury wrote.
（暂无翻译）
If you're looking for a reason — other than the now alcohol-free train station, that is — to visit the town of roughly 40,000 people, you'll find it on the historic Castle Road from Heidelberg to Bayreuth. It's near the Frankenhöhe National Park, is home to the Ansbach Residence medieval castle complex, the picturesque Ansbach Court Gardens, an 18th century synagogue, and is also the site of the crypts of the Margrave noble family of Franconia.
（暂无翻译） （暂无翻译）
The government's planned changes to emergency service response have cleared the lower house of parliament, the Bundestag.
（暂无翻译）
One opposition party, the Greens, also supported the grand coalition's proposals, which are similar to plans that were under discussion in the previous government before it was cut short by early elections in 2025. Health Minister Carsten Linnemann says the changes aim to ensure that patients receive care quicker, and in the right place.
（暂无翻译） （暂无翻译）
Its main goal is to help ease the burden for paramedics and emergency first responders, by trying to prevent unncecessary calls to the 112 emergency hotline when a different service might be more appropriate.
（暂无翻译）
Perhaps the main pillar of the plan is to directly network the emergency ambulance phone line 112, with the out-of-hours emergency doctor helpline 116 117 that is designed for less life-or-death medical cases.
（暂无翻译）
Linnemann said the reforms were long overdue and that the reality was still that too many people did not really know who they were supposed to call when, and if in doubt would just call 112.
（暂无翻译）
The reform package also envisages setting up integrated emergency centers, known by the German acronym INZ, that will be open around the clock and will bring doctors and hospital staff and other emergency responders together at one site.
（暂无翻译）
Special emergency centers for children and adolescents will also be set up. Alla hopp!
（暂无翻译）
Another day, another digest of the main news morsels on the menu in fair Deutschland, delectable and perhaps disgusting alike.
（暂无翻译）
Thanks for stopping by, Planet Earth.
（暂无翻译）
If you're waiting for a train and frustrated by the delay — hardly an unthinkable scenario in modern Germany — on no account crack open a beer to wile away the time.
（暂无翻译）
Starting this Thursday, booze is banned at all of the country's train stations. It's part of a bid to improve behavior, fight littering and in extreme cases protect travelers and staff alike. Various reform plans should start the parliamentary reading process in the Bundestag, after the Cabinet signed off on them in a Wednesday meeting.
（暂无翻译） （暂无翻译） （暂无翻译）
These include hikes to tobacco taxes, emergency service reforms, and changes to the federal law on support in education. The Bundestag will also vote, in what's probably a formality, on extending the military peacekeeping deployments in the Red Sea and in South Sudan into 2027. Left-leaning coalition negotiations are set to restart in Berlin after hitting a big bump in the road earlier this week.
（暂无翻译） （暂无翻译） （暂无翻译）
Essen police are still searching for a prisoner who was violently freed from custody yesterday by two accomplices during a doctor's visit. And the government stats office is warning of a meager potato harvest and increased prices after the scorching, dry summer.
（暂无翻译） （暂无翻译）
We'll endeavor to keep you abreast of these stories and whatever else breaks as the day develops.
（暂无翻译）
仅供学习使用，如有侵权请联系删除 · 查看原文