This is ultimately multiple issues which shouldn't all be washed together :-) The biggest match is SNCF vs. DB indeed, and Grube thinks every obstacle DB faces is an SNCF machination. But there is also an interoperability issue, part of which is that safety rule; and Belgium's SNCB has its stake in the competition thing alongside SNCF, too. (ICEs were long hindered from running to Brussels at full speed, too.)

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}