The first former senior witness is heard in the toll investigation committee. A predecessor of Transport Minister Scheuer is supposed to provide information on what he thought of the idea of a car toll.
Berlin (dpa) - In the investigation committee of the Bundestag, the opposition hopes the former transport minister Peter Ramsauer (CSU) to contribute to clarifying the debacle about the car toll.
Ramsauer had toll plans in his drawer during his time as transport minister (2009 to 2013), but a "toll for everyone without discrimination," said FDP traffic politician Oliver Luksic of the German Press Agency. The current Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer (CSU) was State Secretary under Ramsau. The Green Party politician Stephan Kühn told the dpa: "Under Ramsauer, the pitfalls of the compatibility of the car toll with EU law became apparent."
The opposition accuses Scheuer of making serious mistakes at the expense of taxpayers. The minister rejects the allegations.
The federal government had signed contracts to collect and control the car toll in 2018 - before there was definitive legal certainty. The European Court of Justice (ECJ) had stopped the German car toll last summer. It is discriminatory for owners and drivers from other EU countries. Immediately after the judgment, the federal government terminated the contracts. Before Christmas, the operators Kapsch and CTS Eventim intended for the car toll had put their demands on the federal government at 560 million euros. There is now likely to be arbitration.
Luksic said that the Ramsauer toll plans were a point of discussion between the CDU and FDP in the 17th parliamentary term (2009-2013). "Ramsauer was aware that the coupling of toll fees with a simultaneous reduction in vehicle tax for German citizens constitutes a violation of EU law." It is particularly piquant that this was also known to his then State Secretary Scheuer. The committee of inquiry should clarify why all warnings in the run-up to the ECJ judgment were ignored and ignored.
Kühn said that Ramsauer's then State Secretary Scheuer had been involved in the toll debate from the start. "It cannot be denied that Scheuer was well aware of all the concerns about the car toll. This makes the question of why Scheuer did not take warnings seriously." The left-wing politician Jörg Cezanne told the dpa that Ramsauer was the last CSU transport minister to come to the committee who had refused a pure foreign toll. He expects an intensive questioning.
The SPD traffic politician Kirsten Lühmann told the dpa that the central question was whether Ramsauer had really pointed out to his party colleagues at the time that the introduction of the car toll had no prospect of success.
Representatives from the Ministry of Transport, the Federal Foreign Office and the Ministry of Economics are also invited to the committee of inquiry. According to the opposition, they were all involved in European law processes related to the car toll.
In the previous meeting of the investigative committee two weeks ago, representatives of the Federal Audit Office renewed allegations against the Ministry of Transport. As witnesses, they made it clear that there was a lack of risk assessment and violations of budget and public procurement law in Scheuer's house when the car toll broke later.