Berlin (AFP) – A former German transport minister faces a perjury trial related to a failed scheme to charge foreign motorists highway tolls, a debacle that cost the government hundreds of millions of euros. Berlin prosecutors accuse Andreas Scheuer of lying before a parliamentary committee investigating the issue, and the Berlin regional court said Friday that it had accepted the indictment.
Scheuer, 51, a former minister with the Bavaria-based Christian Social Union (CSU) who has since left politics, has rejected the claims against him, as has state secretary at the time, Gerhard Schulz, a co-defendant in the case. The passenger car toll plan had been pushed by the CSU, whose leaders had voiced annoyance that while German drivers pay highway tolls in many other European countries, foreign drivers get a free ride on Germany’s autobahn.
They came up with a plan to levy tolls for all drivers but then compensate German motorists by reducing their motor vehicle taxes, a scheme that was shot down in 2019 by the European Court of Justice for breaching EU rules. By that time, however, Scheuer’s ministry had already entered into binding contracts with the designated toll scheme operators. This ended up costing the German government 243 million euros ($283 million at current exchange rates) in damages paid to the companies involved, CTS Eventim and Kapsch TrafficCom.
According to prosecutors, Scheuer and Schulz allegedly made “deliberate false statements” to the parliamentary committee investigating the issue. When asked by MPs whether the companies had offered in late 2018 to postpone signing the contracts until after the ECJ ruling, both men allegedly “stated, contrary to their actual recollection, that they could not remember such an offer of postponement,” the prosecutor’s office said.
No date has yet been announced for the first court hearing.
© 2024 AFP
