The cycling referendum already has enough supporters, the initiators have collected more than 100,000 signatures and submitted them to the Ministry of the Interior. However, this considers the referendum to be inadmissible, which is why a hearing was held before the Bavarian Constitutional Court (VGH) on Wednesday. The biggest point of contention was the question of whether the draft law interferes with the budget – and is therefore inadmissible, since budget sovereignty lies with the state parliament.
At the beginning there were two numbers in the room. On the one hand 350 million euros. According to state government representatives, these are the annual costs should the proposed law go through. That makes about 0.5 percent of the budget of 71 billion. The aim of the initiators is, for example, the construction, conversion and expansion of cycle paths. The representatives of the referendum, however, speak of 37.5 million euros, which are incurred as preliminary costs.
The negotiation did not reveal which number is correct. Bernadette Felsch, the representative of the referendum, criticized the fact that only the costs, but no cost-benefit ratio, were taken into account when calculating the state government. The law also does not intervene in the state budget because part of the expenditure is reimbursed by federal subsidies or borne by individual municipalities themselves. “The Home Office’s bill is extra high,” she said. Her lawyer Christian Mayer described the requirements of the referendum as excessive. “Each of the cost measures was calculated with the maximum cost. All rule proposals were interpreted as mandatory,” Mayer said. The initiative was misinterpreted by the state government.
Volkhard Spilarewicz, the representative of the Ministry of the Interior, contradicted this. “Anyone who reads the Radgesetz cannot know that these are only non-binding proposals,” he said. And costs of 37.5 million euros are also relevant for the budget. The CSU MP Josef Schmid agreed as a representative of the state parliament and described budget law as “the most important right”.
The Constitutional Court will announce its decision on Wednesday June 7th.