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Last day of the 9-euro ticket at Leipzig Central Station: Many people took advantage of the offer and would like a follow-up solution
Photo: Dirk Sattler / IMAGO
There was a lot of argument about a successor to the 9-euro ticket - now the federal and state governments want to agree on a connection solution for local transport by mid-October.
All countries could imagine bearing half of the loss of income with a cheap connection ticket, said the chairwoman of the conference of transport ministers, Maike Schaefer (Bremen, Greens) after consultations with Federal Minister Volker Wissing (FDP).
A working group should now quickly advise on the design of such a ticket.
The ticket should be valid for January for the first time, emphasized Wissing.
The traffic light coalition in the federal government had agreed to provide 1.5 billion euros annually for a nationwide local transport ticket in a next relief package - if the states give at least as much.
The goal is a price between 49 and 69 euros per month.
In June, July and August, the 9-euro ticket enabled travel by bus and train nationwide for one month.
At the same time, however, the federal states expected that a ticket would only come if the federal government also increased the general regionalization funds.
With this money from Berlin, the federal states order services from the transport companies.
Wissing expressed understanding that the federal states were demanding more regionalization funds in view of the high energy prices.
We still have to talk about that.
The federal states will normally receive regionalization funds of 9.4 billion euros from the federal government this year, plus another billion from another pot.
The status quo in public transport cannot be maintained without the regionalization funds, said Schaefer.
»Then a follow-up ticket is useless.
Because we not only want to maintain the quality of public transport, but also want to expand it, warm words and promises are no longer enough, we want butter on the fish«.
»The federal government now has a clear obligation«
It is "a good step that the federal and state governments have basically agreed on a follow-up ticket for January 1st, 2023," said the transport spokesman for the Greens, Stefan Gelbhaar, to SPIEGEL.
»This step must now be followed immediately by further steps in order to be able to cope with the tight schedule.
The Federal Minister of Transport is responsible for negotiating a good and quick financial and structural solution with the federal states.
The agreed working group must now come together immediately and get down to business.«
Bernd Riexinger, former party chairman of the left, was more critical of SPIEGEL.
“It is an unfair game that the federal government is playing here: passing the buck to the states.” It is clear that a solution to replace the 9-euro ticket is needed quickly.
“It was a big mistake not to act faster.
Especially because it takes a long time before transport policy decisions can be implemented.
The federal government now has a clear obligation to clarify the financing.
The federal states and municipalities cannot do that.«
Even before the conference, some politicians called for public transport services to be secured first.
"Months ago, we calculated that we needed an additional 1.65 billion euros in regionalization funds from the federal government just to maintain the offer," Brandenburg's Transport Minister Guido Beermann told SPIEGEL.
»Now the most urgent thing is to deal with the exploding energy costs and to make public transport weatherproof.«
Saarland Prime Minister Anke Rehlinger (SPD) said on Deutschlandfunk that the discussion should not just focus on one ticket model.
Public transport needs to be expanded.
»What use is the cheap bus that ultimately doesn’t run.«
fin/ani/AFP/dpa
