Almost €30 million state aid approved for Stolberg intermodal terminal near Aachen

The European Commission approved the German state-aid measure on 30 October 2026. The funding will be provided as a direct grant to EVS EUREGIO Verkehrsschienennetz, the railway infrastructure company that will own the new terminal at Stolberg Hauptbahnhof in North Rhine-Westphalia. The EUREGIO terminal is scheduled to open in 2035 and reach full operating capacity in 2037. It forms part of the larger Euregio Railport project, which is intended to develop Stolberg into an intermodal freight hub serving western Germany and the neighbouring Benelux countries. Existing freight flows from Rotterdam, Amsterdam and Belgian ports Stolberg already has freight handling facilities, including railway sidings, storage areas and container handling equipment. A 2022 report by the Aachen regional authority recorded approximately 1.5 million tonnes of annual freight handling at the existing EVS site. The traffic included bulk commodities, general cargo and large prefabricated concrete components transported from the direction of the ports of Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Antwerp and Zeebrugge. Stolberg therefore already serves logistics flows linked to the Netherlands and Belgium. The planned terminal will expand the location's ability to transfer containers and other intermodal loading units between road and rail, providing an inland transshipment point for companies in the Aachen region and the wider Rhineland. A freight marketing study conducted by the University of Münster and RWTH Aachen in 2024 identified potential demand from the food, construction materials and retail sectors. It also identified connections with North Sea ports and logistics centres in Germany and southern Europe as potential markets for the expanded railport. Infrastructure for 740-metre freight trains The development includes additional shunting and handling tracks designed to accommodate freight trains up to 740 metres long. EVS had already commissioned a 740-metre shunting track by 2022, providing an initial element of the planned expansion. The city of Stolberg is also developing adjacent industrial land under the Logistic Mobility Campus Stolberg (LMCS) project. The concept combines intermodal handling with logistics activities such as packaging, processing and distribution. Road access is another important part of the project. The 2024 freight potential study identified the planned extension of the L238n road towards the A4 motorway as essential to the terminal's development, allowing lorries to reach the facility without relying on existing urban routes. The railport also belongs to the Rhineland's economic restructuring programme, which seeks new industrial and logistics activities as the region transitions away from lignite mining and coal-fired power generation. The European Commission assessed the €29.3 million subsidy under Article 93 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union and its Land and Multimodal Transport Guidelines. It concluded that public support was necessary for the investment and that the measure was proportionate to the objective of shifting freight from road to rail.