According to the operator, there has been an agreement in the dispute over compensation for the failed car toll. Accordingly, a payment from the federal government of 243 million euros is to be expected. Transport Minister Wissing was disillusioned.
The failed car toll is expensive in Germany. After an arbitration, the Federal Republic has to pay 243 million euros in damages, as announced by the Austrian toll operator Kapsch TrafficCom. In the summer of 2019, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) overturned the plans pushed by the CSU because the planned tax discriminated against foreign vehicle owners.
The Austrian toll specialist Kapsch and the ticket marketer CTS Eventim, who founded the joint venture autoTicket for the toll, had received billion-dollar contracts to collect the fee and issue the electronic toll vignettes. After the ECJ overturned the German toll plans, they originally demanded around 560 million euros in damages in the arbitration proceedings. The companies and Germany had agreed to the settlement proposal of the arbitral tribunal, explained CTS Eventim.
Wissing: “Bitter amount”
Federal Transport Minister Volker Wissing described the damages due as a “bitter sum”. The FDP politician said at the same time that the federal government had done damage limitation. Originally, there would have been a claim for damages of over 700 million euros.
Wissing called the failed car toll a serious mistake and criticized the actions of his predecessor Andreas Scheuer (CSU): “It is incomprehensible to me how it was possible for contracts to be signed on this issue before the court decisions were available. ” He regrets that the amount of damages is not available for infrastructure investments.
Wissing further said the arbitral tribunal had proposed a termination by arbitral award. The Budget Committee of the Bundestag gave the go-ahead for this arbitral award to be approved. After that, the Federal Republic of Germany would have to pay 243 million euros in damages.
Scheuer resigned operator contracts
The car toll was a prestige project of the CSU, which wanted to prevent an additional burden on German drivers. The German concept therefore stipulated that all users should initially pay the toll. However, domestic vehicle owners should be relieved of at least the same amount of vehicle tax, so that the bottom line is that only foreign owners would have had to pay. The toll should actually be levied from October 2020 and bring in 500 million euros on balance.
In June 2019, the ECJ found that the German plan violated EU law. Immediately thereafter, the then Minister of Transport, Scheuer, terminated the operator contracts with autoTicket. The CSU politician rejected claims for compensation from companies. The Department of Transportation filed a request for arbitration in February 2020. In March 2022, the arbitral tribunal awarded the companies the right to compensation.
Because of the rain of money from the arbitration proceedings, Kapsch raised its forecast. The company now expects a significant improvement in the operating result (EBIT) with sales growth in the single-digit percentage range in the 2023/24 financial year. Until now, Kapsch had only expected a slight increase in earnings. In the past fiscal year, Kapsch earned just 7.6 million euros before taxes and interest.