bill38
member since 1 Nov 2025 11:25
Klaus-Michael Kühne had no children and lived in a Swiss canton with zero inheritance tax. When he died, his €42.2bn fortune passed tax-free into a decades-old charity, instantly making it one of the wealthiest foundations in Europe.
Record attempt 7-11 september. uninterrupted rail journey from Kemijärvi in Finnish Lapland to Lagos in Portugal, the two places furthest apart in the EU that can be connected by train.
Mario Draghi and Patrick Collison are bringing together economists, entrepreneurs, academics and key figures in European politics. A new multidisciplinary group aims to translate economic analysis into concrete reforms to strengthen Europe’s global position in technological and strategic sectors.
Here is his explanation about that point:
But you are going to get stuck in Germany!
No.
“But its trains are unreliable!”
Yes. But still no.
It goes like this. This trip takes me through parts of Europe where timetables are thin. Very thin. If anything goes wrong there – a tree on the line, a broken down train – I am screwed. Stuck. For hours. Between Kemijärvi and Kemi there is 1 train a day. Kemi – Haparanda, 2. Boden – Umeå, 4. Lyon – Barcelona, 1. Madrid – Badajoz, 2 useable ones. Badajoz – Entroncamento, 2. And in Boden and Entroncamento I have really tight connections.
And then, bizarrely, the thinness of those timetables in France, Spain and Portugal, and the absence of night trains in those countries, leaves me without any serious worry crossing Germany – because I cannot do more than Strasbourg – Madrid in a day, and Madrid – Lagos the following day, even if I wanted to.
If the NightJet 471 I need across Germany is cancelled, I have (albeit uncomfortable) trains I can take instead. If the NightJet is delayed, I can get off earlier than Offenburg (probably Frankfurt) and have other options there. Trains might be unreliable, but the timetable is dense, and there are loads of diversionary routes. And last but not least, pretty much no trains in Germany are compulsory reservation, meaning I can just go take any train. Were I to need something else in France or Spain, where everything is compulsory reservation, I could likewise be unlucky that the train I need after a disruption is full and I cannot board.
In other words, Germany might cause plenty of disruption, but it also copes better with disruption than pretty much any other country.
Text article : https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20260912-french-police-investigate-suspected-sabotage-in-train-derailment