Too many questions are still open for the opposition: the fractions of the FDP, the Left and the Greens have in the Bundestag, the establishment of a committee of inquiry on the debacle on the car toll on the way. The aim is to fully explain the behavior of the acting and the previous federal government "in connection with the preparation and introduction of the infrastructure tax", according to the application, which is available to SPIEGEL.
The car toll, a prestige project of the CSU and its transport ministers, had failed in June on one. The judges ruled that the proposed levy was discriminatory and incompatible with EU law.
The problem that became known only after that: When the verdict came, the federal government had already signed contracts with companies that were to take over the technical implementation. Therefore threaten the federal government claims for damages of up to 300 million euros.
Scheuer concealed secret meetings
In addition, Federal Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer concealed the Bundestag several secret meetings with the toll companies CTS Eventim and Kapsch, one of them should even have been unlawful.
The committee of inquiry is now to clarify how exactly the negotiations proceeded, who was responsible in detail for the decisions and why the Federal Government, the plans in spite of the initiated in 2015 infringement proceedings and the action brought by Austria before the ECJ.
"Tricked, disguised, deceived"
Scheuer had "tricked, disguised and deceived in the award of tolls to operator companies," said the FDP traffic expert Oliver Luksic in the NDR. The minister withholds documents and blames others.
Scheuer had sole responsibility for causing taxpayers up to € 500 million in damages. All the documentation from the contracting authority of the Ministry of Transport, "of which we know that there were concerns", was missing to this day. If all allegations were confirmed, Scheuer was no longer in office.
"Scheuer has repeatedly proven in recent weeks that he is not ready to contribute to the complete clarification of the car toll disaster," said the Green Transport politician Stephan Kühn of the "Augsburger Allgemeine". "Instead of providing transparency as advertised, he tries to escape responsibility and gets entangled in ever new contradictions." The Green politician added: "A minister with decency would have long ago resigned."
Kühn and his group colleague Sven-Christian Kindler commissioned a report from the Scientific Service of the Bundestag.
