The financing of the “Stuttgart 21” train station project is the subject of a court hearing from today. Who has to foot the bills for the increased expenses?
From above, they look like white marshmallows swimming in a cocoa cup: the large round porthole windows that seem to pop open around the old Stuttgart train station on the construction site at the Stuttgart Schlossgarten. Later on, the 28 goblet supports will be the main focus of the underground station and bring the light onto the tracks – later, when everything is finished.
When that will be seems just as difficult to quantify as the costs of the most contentious railway project in the republic. Completion was repeatedly delayed. It is currently said that the underground station should finally welcome passengers in 2025.
Final costs not foreseeable
The time for the final cash register crash of the railway project seems to be even further away. There are always new imponderables. Most recently because of the digitization of the signal control (ETCS) for the railway junction around the state capital with unforeseen further construction work.
The expenses for “Stuttgart 21” and the associated connections have continued to rise in recent decades. The total costs are currently estimated at 9.15 billion euros. On top of that there is a risk buffer of 640 million euros.
Chronically rising expenses
When the financing contract was signed in 2009 between the state of Baden-Württemberg, the railways, Stuttgart Airport, the city and the Stuttgart Region Association, the number was about half that: the project was estimated at 4.5 billion euros at the time. Even then, it was clear to those responsible that it would not stop there. Because at the very beginning, the project was set at a cost of 2.5 billion euros in a framework agreement in 1995.
That is why the financing contract 14 years ago also stipulated how to proceed if the costs were exceeded and who ultimately had to take responsibility: only the railways and their subsidiaries as project sponsors? Or the city of Stuttgart, the state, the airport and the Verband Region Stuttgart?
Speaking clause under scrutiny
This determination, which is addressed by a passage in the contract, is now primarily before the Stuttgart Administrative Court. It says:
In the event of further cost increases, the EIU (the railway company, ed.) and the state will enter into talks.
But when it comes to the state of Baden-Württemberg, there is nothing more to discuss. From the Ministry of Transport by Winfried Hermann (Greens) it was said before the start of the process to the SWR: “Bahn is the sole project sponsor and client and has to bear the associated risks and unforeseen additional costs.”
Voluntary co-funding?
The lawsuit, which is now being heard before the Stuttgart Administrative Court, was filed by Deutsche Bahn in 2016. The refusal attitude of the state of Baden-Württemberg has not changed since then. From his point of view, grants for the railway project are over.
In connection with the previous costs, Hermann speaks of voluntary co-financing of the project. It should definitely not be more. In a press release from the Baden-Württemberg Ministry of Transport, Hermann was already quoted as saying in 2021: “If the Federal Ministry of Transport has large financial resources (…), the ministry should also ensure that DB settles its billion-dollar lawsuit against the project partners to assume the additional costs of S 21 withdraws”.
Bahn hopes for cost sharing
But that didn’t happen. The railway has maintained the lawsuit in order to avoid having to bear all the extra costs on its own. After seven years of preparation, the first day of negotiations is now upon us. From the company’s point of view, the “Stuttgart 21” project was spread over several shoulders from the start. That has not changed, according to Bahn AG SWR:
Based on the history of the project, the financing negotiations and the contractual provisions on joint project responsibility, DB assumes that there is also joint financing responsibility and that the speech clause justifies a claim to further financing participation.
Judgment far away
Both the state of Baden-Württemberg and Deutsche Bahn are confident in the first day of negotiations before the administrative court in Stuttgart. While the country is assuming that Deutsche Bahn’s lawsuit for assumption of costs will be dismissed, Deutsche Bahn already sees itself as the winner of the process.
But it is unclear when the administrative court will make a judgment and thus create legal certainty about the assumption of costs. The administrative court has not even set a second day of hearing on the matter so far. The legal dispute between Deutsche Bahn and its contractual partners could drag on for years – probably even after the opening of the underground station.