For Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer (CSU) it is an extremely important statement: According to ex-Transport State Secretary Gerhard Schulz, there was no offer for Scheuer to wait before concluding multi-million dollar contracts with the originally planned operating companies.
Schulz has now confirmed this in a renewed hearing as a witness in the toll investigation committee.
The managers of the operating companies had previously stated that they had offered Scheuer at a meeting in November 2018 to await a decision by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) before concluding the contracts.
Scheuer should not have gone into that.
Schulz, who had been summoned as a witness again, now said that he was "very sure" that no such offer had been made.
Schulz had already commented accordingly in October - now he substantiated his statement.
Schulz said that even after looking at the files, his memory had "condensed into certainty" that such an offer had not been made.
Schulz suspected the ongoing arbitration proceedings between the federal government and the companies as the reason for the managers' statements to the contrary.
The proposed operators are demanding 560 million euros in damages after the federal government terminated the contracts immediately after the judgment of the ECJ.
The court had overturned the German model for a car toll in the summer of 2019.
Scheuer himself had also testified in October: According to his memory, there was no offer by the operator to postpone the conclusion of a contract until a ECJ ruling.
The opposition questions the minister's credibility.
She accuses Scheuer of serious errors at the expense of taxpayers in the car toll.
Schulz also confirmed that in the conversation with the managers, him and Scheuer in November 2018, the aim was to bring an offer from the consortium at a price of three billion euros in the direction of the two billion euros approved by the Bundestag.
Icon: The mirror
fek / dpa
