2024-04-05 05:23:43
Former Minister Scheuer could still get into legal difficulties because of the toll debacle – and soon. In the worst case, you could face several years in prison.
Shortly after the former Federal Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer (CSU) announced that he would resign from his Bundestag mandate, a decision in the ongoing investigation against him is now pending. This is reported by “manager magazine”.
Accordingly, the public prosecutor’s office in Berlin has interviewed important witnesses, including from the Ministry of Transport, in the past few weeks. In judicial circles it is therefore assumed that the investigation will be completed in the coming weeks, the “manager magazin” continued. Scheuer would be expected to be charged. The investigating authority did not want to comment on the current status and only informed the medium that the proceedings were ongoing.
The process has been ongoing since 2022
The proceedings have been running since 2022. The public prosecutor’s office is investigating Scheuer for making unsworn false statements in the toll investigation committee. As a reminder: As a minister, Scheuer campaigned for years for the construction of car toll booths on motorways. To do this, he concluded contracts with the companies Kapsch TrafficCom and CTS Eventim. But the concept, according to which only foreign drivers should pay tolls, was ultimately struck down by the European Court of Justice in 2019.
The ministry terminated the contracts and the companies then demanded compensation of 500 million euros. The federal government agreed with the two companies before an arbitration tribunal last summer on a payment of 243 million euros.
A legal opinion in December stated that Scheuer’s gross negligence would be difficult to prove. A lawsuit therefore has little chance of success. According to “manager magazin”, the fact that a lawsuit could now arise is because Scheuer’s statements before the investigative committee differ in part from witness statements. “The committee was unable to clarify the course and content of the discussions on the controversial points,” it says in the final report.
There is a risk of up to five years in prison
If Scheuer is found guilty by a court, he could face up to five years in prison in the worst case scenario. Often, proceedings of this type do not end in court at all, but are ended by an agreement on a monetary payment or something similar.
It is unclear to what extent Scheure’s resignation is related to the developments in the investigation. The politician has not yet commented on the media report.
Scheuer had been a member of the Bundestag since 2002, where he represented the Passau constituency. From 2009 to 2013 he was State Secretary in the Ministry of Transport, and from December 2013 to 2018 he took over the position of CSU General Secretary alongside the then party leader Horst Seehofer. After the 2018 federal election, he became Federal Transport Minister in Angela Merkel’s (CDU) fourth cabinet. The problems with the toll also brought him criticism from his own party.