BERLIN – German prosecutors charged former Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer on Wednesday with false testimony after he downplayed his responsibility for Germany’s failure to impose car tolls on foreigners.
In the 2010s, Scheuer and his party, the conservative Christian Social Union (CSU), had pushed to establish a controversial fee for foreigners crossing into German territory. Germany is one of the few European countries without motorway charges.
The plan collapsed when the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled in 2019 that the legislation was discriminating against foreigners, following an Austrian lawsuit.
This left Germany with a bill of over €240 million for contracts that the transport ministry had pre-signed with private companies to implement the toll following a compromise between Germany and the European Commission. Contractors claimed they had offered to wait with the signing until there was legal certainty over the project’s future, but Scheuer allegedly pressed ahead.
On Wednesday, prosecutors in Berlin charged Scheuer with deliberately giving false testimony when, during a hearing in the German parliament in 2020, he claimed he had been unaware of such offers.
In a statement, the former transport minister accused prosecutors of “politically motivated” charges that were “unreasonable”. If found guilty, he could face a prison sentence between three months and five years.
Scheuer, who served as transport minister under Angela Merkel from 2018 to 2021, has long been the centre of criticism over his decision to sign the contracts ahead of the ECJ ruling.
His Bavarian party had argued that the toll was a fair way to fund Germany’s infrastructure to mirror the charges Germans face abroad.
But experts, including from Scheuer’s own ministry, had already warned that the plans were illegal due to the discriminatory charge for foreigners, which would have predominantly affected motorists from neighbouring European countries. While the toll was to be charged to all users, Germans were effectively exempted via tax cuts equivalent to the planned toll.
Scheuer, who withdrew from frontline politics in 2024, claimed that he took responsibility for the failure. A legal review commissioned by his successor, Volker Wissing, a liberal Free Democrat (FDP), in 2023 found that Scheuer could not be personally charged for the failed contracts.
(mm)