As in the morning, the three opposition parties Green, Left and FDP presented their plans for the committee of inquiry in matters of car toll in Berlin, there prevailed crowded area in the hall. "It was a political project that nobody but the CSU wanted," said Left MEP Jörg Cezanne. "A Bierzeltidee of the Federal Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer," scolded his colleague from the Greens, Stephan Kühn. And the FDP traffic expert Oliver Luksic added: "The Minister does not even say in the clause that he has made mistakes."
At the end of November, the committee of inquiry is to commence work. Among other things, the opposition wants to clarify why Scheuer had concluded the billion-dollar toll contracts with the operators before the European Court of Justice ruled on the project. In the first quarter of 2020, the MPs want to be largely ready with the questioning of the witnesses, at the end of the Minister should be heard.
Scouring is increasingly under pressure. Because on the taxpayer come to new costs of about four million euros in connection with the failed car toll. This emerges from a confidential letter from the operator consortium Autoticket to the federal government, which is the SPIEGEL.
Compensation claims amounting to 3.2 million euros
On October 1, lawyers from Autoticket informed the external lawyers of the Ministry of Transport about the "state of the settlement" of the toll system. Accordingly, the termination of a loan agreement with Commerzbank and LBBW resulted in claims for compensation amounting to EUR 3.2 million. The company Equinix, an operator of data centers, calls for an auto-ticket compensation of one million euros. In addition, there are the costs for the subtenants of the Berlin consulting firm Core, which has also acted as a subcontractor of Autoticket. The amount of rent for the offices in the well-known E-Werk in Berlin-Mitte was not quoted in the letter.
The European Court of Justice declared the German car toll illegal on 18 June. The next day, Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer (CSU) had terminated the operator consortium Autoticket, consisting of the companies Kapsch TrafficCom and CTS Eventim. Shortly thereafter, it became known that the federal government has already spent more than 50 million euros for the preparation of the car toll. In addition, any compensation claims of the operating companies of up to half a billion euros.
Allegations of the federal government rejected by the operator
A similar complaint has not yet been received by the Confederation, but it is expected in the coming months. The Department of Transportation and Car Ticket would then meet in a private arbitral tribunal with high legal fees for the government. "To shirk his responsibility for the toll-bot, Scheuer resorts to a risky strategy that is expensive for taxpayers: he is breaking a lawsuit with the private operators to save his ministry over time," he says the budgetary spokesman of the Green Group in the Bundestag, Sven-Christian Kindler.
The ministry had justified his termination of the operator contract primarily not with the negative ECJ ruling, but with alleged poor performance of car ticket. In this way, the department of Andreas Scheuer apparently wants to avoid any claims for damages of the companies. This was followed by a second notice of termination of subcontracting contracts. The operator company has rejected the allegations of the federal government.