Rhein-Main-Donau GmbH
| Rhein-Main-Donau GmbH
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| legal form | AG (since 1921) , GmbH (from 2018) |
| founding | December 30, 1921 |
| Seat | Landshut, Germany |
| management | Klaus Engels, Ludwig Tremml |
| Branch | Electricity industry |
| Website | www.rmd.de |
| Status: 2020 | |
The Rhein-Main-Donau GmbH ( RMD until January 2018 Rhein-Main-Donau AG ) is a private infrastructure company based in Landshut . It owns hydropower plants and is carrying out the expansion of the Rhine-Main-Danube waterway including flood protection on behalf of the Federal Republic of Germany and the Free State of Bavaria .
story
The project was already being considered when the “Association for the Uplift of River and Canal Shipping in Bavaria” was founded on November 6, 1892 in Nuremberg . After the Main from Bamberg and the Danube from Kelheim to the Reich border on April 1, 1921, had become Reichswasserstraße, on June 13th 1921 the German Reich and the Free State of Bavaria signed a state treaty “to plan the Main-Danube waterway as soon as possible realize ". "Rhein-Main-Donau AG" (RMD-AG), based in Munich, was founded as the executive body on December 30, 1921 as a private stock corporation , which served to take over the state task of building the navigable connection between the North Sea and the Black Sea . For this purpose, the Main above Aschaffenburg and the Danube above Passau had to be expanded up to the canal connection and the Main-Danube Canal built.
Concrete plans for the canal between the two rivers only emerged with the signing of the Rhine-Main-Danube Act of May 11, 1938, but were interrupted by the Second World War. After the establishment of the Federal Republic of Germany , Rhein-Main-Donau AG reverted to its previous rights in September 1949. Planning for the Main-Danube Canal was resumed in the 1950s, and construction began in June 1960. In the Duisburg contract between the Federal Republic of Germany and the Free State of Bavaria, financing and implementation were reorganized in 1966. The federal government held two thirds and the Free State of Bavaria one third of the RMD-AG. In the 1970s and 1980s this Main-Danube Canal was increasingly politically controversial. In addition to doubts about safety and questions of international law, the construction of the canal was now above all an issue of environmental policy . In particular, the expansion of a 34-kilometer section of the Altmühl and its negative effects on the flora and fauna were the subject of controversial discussions. On January 14, 1982, the cabaret artist Dieter Hildebrandt dedicated an episode of his television program Scheibenwischer to the Main-Danube Canal and caused a media scandal. The Bavarian state government protested at the broadcaster Free Berlin because of alleged allegations and a "anti-Bavarian program".
After 32 years of construction, however, the last section of the canal was officially opened on September 25, 1992 by the then Bavarian Prime Minister Max Streibl near Pierheim (town of Hilpoltstein ). Only in the case of Danube shipping is a possible expansion between Straubing and Vilshofen an der Donau under discussion, which, however, according to the latest planning no longer relies on the controversial weirs, but on gentler methods. This task is the responsibility of the subsidiary "RMD Wasserstraßen GmbH", which was spun off in 1999 and is also responsible for flood protection. The operation of the waterway is the responsibility of the Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Urban Development .
structure
In the 1920s, the share capital was divided into ordinary and preference shares. The former were owned by the German Reich, the Free State of Bavaria and other states as well as public corporations, while one sixth of the latter were taken over by several cities interested in the company, otherwise by a banking consortium led by Deutsche Bank , the and the Bankhaus Mendelssohn & Co. belonged.
To finance the expansion of the waterway, the company received the concession to build and operate hydropower plants at a number of locations in Bavaria on the Main, Regnitz , Altmühl , Danube and Lech . This concession runs from 1921 to 2050, after which the power plants and rights that have been built fall to the state. These now 59 power plants including a pumped storage power plant were built between 1927 and 2000. Of these, 16 belong to the regional subsidiaries Donau-Wasserkraft , Obere Donau Kraftwerke , Mittlere Donau Kraftwerke and Mainkraftwerk Schweinfurt, each with a minority shareholder.
In the post-war period until 1995, two thirds of the company belonged to the Federal Republic of Germany and one third to Bavaria. In 1996 the AG was privatized and today it is 77.49% owned by Uniper , 14% by LEW and 8.5% by EnBW . The shares of LEW and EnBW are bundled in Bayerische-Schwäbische Wasserkraftwerke Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH, which alongside Uniper officially acts as a minority shareholder. The management of the power plants was transferred to today's Uniper Kraftwerke and the Bayerische Elektrizitätswerke .
In January 2018, Rhein-Main-Donau AG was transformed into Rhein-Main-Donau GmbH and the headquarters were relocated to Landshut to the headquarters of the hydropower division of Uniper Kraftwerke GmbH.
Since 1995, engineering consultancy has been carried out in the field of hydraulic engineering via "RMD Consult GmbH". The company was sold to Uniper Technologies GmbH at the end of 2019 as part of the concentration of Rhein-Main-Donau GmbH on the core business and today focuses on the area of decentralized energy systems.
The Rhine-Main-Danube waterway GmbH was acquired in early 2020 by the Free State of Bavaria for a symbolic euro to the engineering capacities for flood protection to get through the nearly completed waterway expanding beyond long term Bavaria. Today the company operates under the name Wasserbauliche Infrastrukturgesellschaft mbH (WIGES).
Web links
- RMD homepage
- Early documents and newspaper articles on Rhein-Main-Donau GmbH in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .
Footnotes
- ↑ Imprint - Rhein-Main-Donau GmbH. Retrieved September 3, 2020 .
- ^ A b Siegfried Zelnhefer: A dream becomes reality. The completion of the Main-Danube Canal. In: Nürnberg Heute , 52, July 1992.
- ↑ "The crowning glory of privatization" Under Stoiber, the energy supplier Bayernwerk is to be sold. In: the daily newspaper , July 15, 1993.
- ↑ Der Spiegel : True Abundance . In: The mirror . No. 4 , 1982 ( online - "A TV satire about the Rhine-Main-Danube Canal hit the Free State of Bavaria: cabaret penetrated the cabinet.").
- ^ "Danube expansion is in full swing", Bayerische Staatszeitung from January 20, 2016. ( Online )
- ↑ Society's newspaper advertisement in the Hamburger Nachrichten of June 20, 1926 (morning edition), p. 16.
- ↑ Free State takes over waterway company. süddeutsche.de , January 7, 2020, accessed on January 7, 2020 .