2023-07-05 19:16:01
The actions of the former federal government in the unsuccessful introduction of a car toll cost the state 243 million euros. Federal Transport Minister Volker Wissing (FDP) and the operating company Autoticket GmbH announced this on Wednesday evening. “This is a bitter sum,” said Wissing. But it is necessary to limit the damage. Originally, there were claims for damages of more than 700 million euros. He regrets that the amount of damages is not available for urgently needed infrastructure investments.
Wissing described the toll as a “serious mistake” and criticized the actions of his predecessor Andreas Scheuer (CSU). “It is incomprehensible to me how contracts on this issue could have been signed before the court decisions were available,” said the FDP politician.
The project is related to the then Federal Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer (CSU). Accordingly, the toll would have applied to all users of German motorways. German motorists should have been relieved of the vehicle tax again. At the behest of the black-red federal government under Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU), he had pushed the project against European legal concerns, but had to bury it after the European Court of Justice stopped the toll in 2019 after a lawsuit by Austria. Because the contract with the operating company had already been concluded, she went to an arbitration tribunal. The process dragged on for several years and was closed to the public.
Corinna Budras and Tobias Piller Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 24 Uwe Ebbinghaus Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 86 A comment by Timo Frasch, Munich Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 33
The contracts with the operator Autoticket, which is a joint venture between the companies Kapsch and CTS Eventim, were concluded six months before the decision of the ECJ and had to be terminated by Andreas Scheuer. The comparison pleases the operator Autoticket, who in his announcement now speaks of a better outlook for the 2023/24 financial year and expects a “significant improvement in the operating result (EBIT) with sales growth in the single-digit percentage range”.
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