The year 2025 marks a turning point in European rail mobility, driven by a political commitment to decarbonisation and a renewed enthusiasm for rail travel. The continent is seeing a wave of inaugurations and relaunches on its cross-border lines, signalling a strong comeback for rail, but the sustainability of which remains conditional on funding.

The most dynamic segment is undoubtedly night trains, although its future is mixed. At the end of 2025, the Paris-Berlin and Paris-Vienna routes operated by a Franco-German-Austrian consortium will be discontinued following the end of a French government subsidy deemed essential to their economic viability.

However, this gap will be partly filled by private initiatives: the Dutch-Belgian rail cooperative European Sleeper has announced the launch of a three-weekly Paris-Berlin service from 26 March 2026. This route, which will pass through Brussels, will double the frequency of its existing service. However, the company, owned by more than 6,000 joint owners, needs to raise additional funds to finance the rolling stock, illustrating the difficulty of operating these long routes without public support.

Expansion of day services

More ambitious still, Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) plans to inaugurate a EuroNight service from April 2026, linking Basel (Switzerland) to Malmö (Sweden), via Copenhagen. This very long-distance link, which will offer three weekly rotations for around 350 passengers, is directly in line with Switzerland’s policy of supporting sustainable mobility, although its launch is strictly conditional on the approval of Swiss government funding linked to the CO₂ law.

At the same time, the rail landscape is being reshaped by competition and the expansion of daytime services. On the Franco-Spanish route, the operator Renfe has reactivated the daily TGV link between Toulouse and Barcelona since April 2025, strengthening connectivity between south-west France and Catalonia. Further north, Europe’s busiest international route is undergoing a minor revolution: in December 2024, SNCF launched a classic Ouigo train service on the Paris—Brussels route, introducing a permanent low-cost offer with three daily return trips and highly competitive departure fares.

New connections in Central Europe

Finally, new connections are structuring Central Europe. The Prague—Gdynia (Poland) line became a permanent route in December 2024, connecting the Czech Republic to the Polish Baltic coast with four daily return trips. To the east, the modernisation of the Budapest—Belgrade line promises, by early 2026, to drastically reduce journey times between the two capitals (from 8 hours to around 3 hours), transforming this major Balkan route.

These launches illustrate a Europe in the midst of reclaiming its rails, banking on speed, night-time comfort and price, as envisaged in the European Commission’s new TEN-T plan proposed in November 2025.

However, in the midst of this cross-border effervescence, one country seems paradoxically excluded from the major European routes of new mobility: Luxembourg. Despite its position as a geographical crossroads at the heart of Europe, the Grand Duchy is systematically ignored or bypassed by the new international lines (TGV, night trains, low-cost) launched by the major operators.

Luxembourg: well connected, but rarely fast

Reading the maps of the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T), the situation seems straightforward: Luxembourg appears, in black and white, among the nodes of the “core network”. The Commission’s official response reiterates this: “Luxembourg is indeed part of the high-speed rail network plan.” The country appears on all European maps as a transit point between Brussels, Paris, Cologne, Frankfurt and Basel.

But for passengers, being on a map is no guarantee of speed or competitiveness. The DG Move maps (Rail passengers maps 2025) actually show that all the lines crossing Luxembourg are conventional lines, limited by slow sections on the Belgian, German or French sides. No direct access to a modern high-speed line (≥200 km/h) enters or leaves the country.

Current journey times confirm this structural limitation. Luxembourg-Paris: 2h15, a journey that has remained stable for ten years. Luxembourg-Brussels: 3h15 to 3h30, largely due to the Arlon-Ottignies section. Luxembourg-German hubs: 3hrs 45mins to Cologne or Frankfurt, slowed down considerably by the Moselle valley and the Saarbrücken-Kaiserslautern sections. Luxembourg-Amsterdam: 6h, as indicated in the European connectivity table. These times are consistent with the Commission’s diagnosis in the “Study on passenger and freight rail transport services” (2024), according to which a rail journey becomes “long” for passengers as soon as it exceeds around 4h-4h30. Beyond that point, air travel becomes the almost systematic choice.

This is exactly what is happening from Luxembourg: only Paris remains below the psychological threshold. To Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands or Switzerland, the train often takes over four hours. And, in the absence of any significant modernisation trajectories on the French, Belgian or German sides, none of these routes is likely to be any faster in the short term.

European investment in Luxembourg itself confirms this. The country has absorbed more than €500 million of CEF funds over the decade, but for robustness and capacity projects: modernisation of the Bettembourg-Luxembourg line, deployment of ERTMS (European Rail Traffic Management System), modernisation of the modal sorting hub, making tunnels and rolling stock safer. None of these projects is designed to increase the commercial speed of international links. The bottlenecks remain at Metz, Thionville, Arlon and Saarland - all outside Luxembourg territory. Nevertheless, the Commission explains on its website that “the EuroCap rail link should modernise the Brussels-Luxembourg-Strasbourg connection to create an efficient line between the three European capitals”.

The paradox is simple: Luxembourg invests, but is entirely dependent on others. And as long as its neighbours do not undertake major renovations or new lines, the country will remain both “connected”... and “slow”.

2035 and beyond: what will really change

The European Commission is defending an ambitious vision. In its written answer, it reaffirms that “Luxembourg remains fully integrated into the TEN-T network, in accordance with the revised regulation (2024 [EU] 1679)”. Better still, it guarantees that by 2040, the country will be “accessible from the main urban nodes of the TEN-T network... in a maximum of 3.5 hours”. This commitment covers Paris, Brussels, Cologne, Frankfurt and Basel, as well as Amsterdam (5h) and Milan (7h15).

A statement that needs to be qualified, however: these times correspond mainly to current times, even if some journeys could be shortened modestly as a result of work planned in neighbouring countries. The Commission is therefore not describing a generalised acceleration, but rather a few localised improvements.

European planning does not in fact announce any new high-speed lines crossing Luxembourg between now and 2035 or 2040. Maps in the “State of play and planned development steps of the EU high-speed railway network until 2040” confirm that the modernised sections in the North Sea-Rhine-Mediterranean corridor are located in Belgium, France or Germany... but never on the border segments linked to Luxembourg.

What the EU can actually do, it describes in its response:

- ask Member States, by 2026, for “measures and recommendations” to remove bottlenecks,

- prepare “decisions” in 2027 making these commitments more binding,

- push to “identify priority sections for high-speed routes”.

But these decisions do not create high-speed lines: they coordinate what the national states agree to finance. And no high-speed projects on the Belgian (Ottignies-Arlon), French (Metz-Thionville) or German (Trèves-Sarrebruck-Kaiserslautern) sides are included in the 2030/2035 national plans.

What Luxembourg can do, on the other hand, is limited, but real:

- modernise its own sections (already underway),

- co-finance a small part of the border sections,

- lobby via the 2027 corridor decisions and improve the passenger experience.

On this last point, the Commission is promising a major project: a single cross-border ticket system (CFL-SNCB-SNCF-DB), for which “a legislative proposal is planned for early 2026”. This could finally offer one-click booking for journeys combining several operators, with harmonised passenger rights.

Less expensive cross-border tickets?

Without speed, the EU can therefore improve access, transparency, competition and prices. The possible revision of rail tolls, easier access to rolling stock and further opening up of the market could make cross-border tickets cheaper - a crucial point when, according to the European 2024 study, train remains systematically more expensive than air travel over distances of more than 350-400 km.

In addition to infrastructure, the Commission points out that lower train fares also depend on national decisions. “Rail is still too often more expensive than air travel,” notes the executive, which stresses that the Member States have “considerable room for manoeuvre” to make tickets more attractive. This involves, in particular, adequate funding of networks - essential to keep access charges low - but also taxation: Member States may, “at their own discretion”, adjust the VAT applied to passenger transport in order to rebalance competition between modes.

In the countries where rail competition has been opened up since 2020, the Commission has observed a significant fall in prices and an improvement in supply, a phenomenon obviously not applicable in Luxembourg because of the public monopoly and the national free service.

To sum up, 2035 will not transform the speed of trains departing from Luxembourg, but could profoundly improve the ease of travel, the legibility of offers and pricing. For passengers to finally save time, they will need something that neither Luxembourg nor Brussels has complete control over: that Belgium, Germany and France decide to invest in their own lines.

An interview with the Minister for Mobility will round off this feature, to look at these concrete issues from the country’s point of view.