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Federal Transport Minister Scheuer last Monday at a press conference in front of the EU rail summit at the Ministry in Berlin.
Photo: Christophe Gateau / dpa
For almost exactly a year, the suspicion has been in the room that Federal Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer (CSU) was untruthful in the affair of the failed car toll in parliament.
In September 2019, he had to justify himself in the Bundestag for the first time for a series of secret meetings that SPIEGEL had made known.
Nevertheless, Scheuer has so far managed to sit out the scandal.
SPIEGEL now has minutes of talks that precisely document these meetings between Scheuer and the CEOs of the consortium shareholders CTS Eventim and Kapsch TrafficCom.
If the representation of the toll operator is correct, then Scheuer would have a big problem: He would be there as a liar.
The reaction to the new revelation was correspondingly violent on the part of the opposition, who want to grill the transport minister on Thursday as a witness in the investigative committee into the car toll.
"If the suspicion is confirmed next Thursday that Transport Minister Scheuer has also tricked and lied to parliament, then what is perhaps the most expensive CSU election campaign slogan of all time will also turn into a solid political scandal," said the chairman of the transport committee, the Green politician Cem Özdemir to SPIEGEL.
His party colleague Oliver Krischer, a member of the toll investigation committee, calls on Scheuer to draw personal conclusions in this case: "What he has achieved in recent years is enough for three resignations in other parties."
The documents that have now landed in the investigation committee contradict Scheuer's previous statements on key points.
On November 29, 2018, a representative of the operating company made the minister, according to a memorandum, an offer "to wait until the ECJ had decided to sign a contract".
Scheuer refused, however, because the toll "should still be introduced in 2020", ie not in the election year 2021. Scheuer is also said to have promised the consortium lucrative "optional services" if they paid the price they asked for the development of the toll system "to reduce".
If this information was correct, Scheuer would not only have lied during a question time in the Bundestag, he would also have offered services that may have to be advertised.
In another meeting one day after the negative toll ruling by the European Court of Justice on June 18, 2019, Scheuer could have threatened representatives of the consortium.
According to a protocol, he is said to have asked the companies to publicly support his point of view, according to which the conclusion of the contract at the end of 2018 and thus before the ECJ ruling was "necessary".
A later statement in the transport committee about the reasons for the termination could then be "one way or another".
Apparently what was meant was that Scheuer would have waived the termination because of alleged defects.
At a question time in parliament, Scheuer had stated that there were "no requests" from his side.
"That is unworthy of a minister"
FDP politician Oliver Luksic
For the Greens Krischer, the minister's statements are more than dubious.
"Asking someone to lie in order to save your ministerial head is no trivial offense," he said.
He could well imagine this at Scheuer, however: "But that fits into the series of his previous actions: He lied to parliament, cheated other bidders in tenders for car tolls, and thus broke taxpayers' damage of 500 million euros through his legs apart. "
Özdemir is about more than the political affair of a single minister: "If the suspicion against the federal minister is confirmed in the investigative committee on Thursday, it is also about the relationship between our democratic institutions not being damaged."
The FDP is already convinced of the minister's guilt: "Scheuer lied in the Bundestag and duped the public," said the FDP traffic expert Oliver Luksic, who represents his party in the investigative committee.
If he does not draw any conclusions on his own, then CSU boss Söder must pull the rip cord.
Luksic also takes the Union's coalition partner to account.
"The SPD must now show its coalition partner a clear edge," said Luksic the SPIEGEL.
Scheuer gambled away tax money in the three-digit million range and fueled disenchantment with politics with his behavior.
"That is unworthy of a minister," said the liberal.
So far, the SPD had held back with criticism of Scheuer, although it made quite sharp questions about Scheuer's role in the committee.
In SPIEGEL, the SPD chairwoman in the investigative committee, Kirsten Lühmann, now drew red lines.
For them, the decisive factor is whether the operators have offered the minister to sign the contract after the judgment of the ECJ.
"If there was such an offer, then the minister did not tell us the truth in parliament," said Lühmann.
For her party, a red line would be crossed, Lühmann thinks that the coalition partner would then have to pull the rip cord.
There was initially silence in the Union on Friday about the events surrounding the transport minister.
CSU boss Markus Söder said in the summer: "First of all, the investigation committee has to clarify whether the allegations are correct."
In the end, it has to be evaluated.
Even the Minister of Transport himself did not report on the new allegations on Friday.
His ministry had told SPIEGEL in a statement that the minister would "fully explain" the matter when he was questioned as a witness before the parliamentary committee of inquiry on October 1.
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