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Construction site on the A8 motorway in Zusmarshausen, Bavaria: A number with explosive meaning
Photo: Stefan Puchner / picture alliance / dpa
The document is not long, less than two pages, and the headline is sober, almost cryptic, that only experts can understand it: "Motorway projects VB-E + FD-E (not yet realized or under construction)"
What follows is a listing that ends with a number:
»144«
But this brief, which is available to SPIEGEL, is explosive.
It culminates in a dispute in the traffic light coalition that has been smoldering for months.
Which should have been settled in a coalition committee last week – in vain.
And which could escalate this spring.
It is about a law to accelerate transport projects, with which the new “Deutschlandtempo” (Chancellor Olaf Scholz) should also be used for repairs, expansion and new construction of roads, rails, airports and waterways.
This is how Transport Minister Volker Wissing (FDP) plans, whose authority is in charge.
He wants to raise the expansion of freeways to public interest and accelerate it with the argument that it serves public safety.
That's what the bill says.
But the Ministry of Economic Affairs and the Ministry of the Environment with the Green Ministers Robert Habeck and Steffi Lemke are also involved.
Together with the Green party leadership, they resist.
Because the Greens are afraid of being abandoned by their electorate when it comes to transport.
An electorate that, although most of them travel by car, is particularly passionate about supporting the expansion of buses and trains in the country.
In addition, the Greens refer to the coalition agreement and the agreement contained therein that rail should have priority over road and that motorways should be renovated and not expanded.
The list from the Transport Minister's officials is a compromise offer.
Behind the abbreviations are two categories of road construction projects, namely those that have a priority need because they serve to remove bottlenecks (VB-E), or whose realization is already planned to remove a bottleneck (FD-E).
Apparently, the 144 projects do not include any new buildings, as was included in the draft law originally presented to the coalition in the fall, including the extension of the A100 in Berlin, which has been the subject of heated debate in the current election campaign.
That is why Wissing seems to have believed that the Greens could agree to the new list.
A mistake.
According to SPIEGEL information, the Greens in the coalition committee quickly made it clear that it was impossible to agree to this list.
That's why they broke up last Thursday without a result.
What is not detailed in the list for the coalition committee is the scope of the expansions.
There is only the Autobahn, its number and occasionally the keyword »individual projects«.
What is hidden behind it is in the Federal Transport Routes Plan.
A list of impertinence for the Greens
On closer inspection, it becomes clear why the Greens in the coalition committee did not want to agree.
The list is broken down by region, showing that most of the projects (60 in total) in North Rhine-Westphalia are to be accelerated.
The A45 (»Sauerlandlinie«) is to be widened to six lanes over 22 kilometers between Dortmund-Hafen and the Westhofen junction, as is the A40 (»Ruhrschnellweg«) from the Kaiserberg junction with interruptions to the junction with the A1 near Unna.
The A3 at Kreuz Kaiserberg and for a further 20 kilometers to Düsseldorf-Hilden is to be widened to eight lanes, as is the A4 near Cologne.
The A8 near Stuttgart is also to be widened to four lanes in each direction.
The A6 between Weinsberg and the state border to Bavaria is to have six lanes over a length of 64 kilometers.
The A9 near Munich would grow to eight lanes.
The same applies to the A8 between the Munich South junction and the Inntal triangle.
It is to be doubled up to eight.
In Hesse, the A5 is to be expanded to ten lanes at the Frankfurt Westkreuz and Westkreuz Stadt Frankfurt, i.e. five in both directions.
The same applies to the A3 between Offenbach and Frankfurt over a length of almost seven kilometers.
In Lower Saxony, among other things, the A2 between the Hannover Herrenhausen junction and the Hannover West Autobahn triangle is to be widened to eight lanes.
The list was available in the Federal Chancellery in the run-up to the coalition committee.
There were hopes that the dispute over the Planning Acceleration Act could be settled.
But in SPD negotiating circles, people were skeptical even before the meeting began.
The sheer number alone, 144 projects, is not exactly enough to convince the Greens.
The SPD strategists feared that the fear of being presented by the environmental associations after an agreement was too great.
The comrades should be right.
The Greens spoke out against the list.
The SPD, which is said to have been open to this compromise offer, is now hoping to bend over the list again in the coming weeks.
The projects will be sorted out in such a way that the Greens can hopefully live with them in the end, a leading social democrat tells SPIEGEL.
However, it is unclear whether the Greens are willing to do so.
No agreement before the Berlin elections
They will certainly not agree until February 12, that is, until the elections have taken place in Berlin.
The issue of traffic plays a big role there because of the dispute over the A100 extension and the many voters who reject new roads.
The FDP-led Federal Ministry of Transport therefore does not want to do anything until the Berlin elections.
According to SPIEGEL information, the topic could be put on the agenda of the planned coalition committee at the beginning of March.
Transport Minister Wissing then wants to clear up the topic of acceleration together with two other, no less controversial topics: the immediate climate protection program for transport and the amendment to the climate protection law.
The Greens expect the FDP to make significantly more proposals than before to close the gap in climate protection in transport.
Only then do you want to tackle the amendment to the Climate Protection Act.
The law is intended to discipline every ministry to comply with the climate targets in its area.
It was introduced in 2019 in the last grand coalition and is considered the greatest achievement of the black-red alliance for climate protection.
The traffic light agreed in its coalition agreement, among other things under pressure from the FDP, to make changes.
Climate activists fear it could be eroded to allow the Department of Transportation to adopt less stringent climate protection targets.
The Greens suspect that their liberal coalition partner has similar intentions.
But if everything is negotiated with everyone else, it could become extremely complicated.
This also depends on how the Greens and FDP fare in the state elections in Berlin on February 12.
The worse, the more difficult a compromise.