Now it’s official: the Greens, SPD and FDP in the state parliament want to set up two more committees of inquiry. One on the explosion in costs and the delay in construction of the second main S-Bahn line in Munich, one on financing the Nuremberg Museum of the Future. As representatives of the three opposition groups – half a dozen had appeared – explained on Wednesday in the state parliament, the catalogs of questions should already be available in November, with which one wants to create “transparency” in both projects; they would have to be “lean” because the end of the election period was approaching. The committees should start before Christmas. There was no other way, since the state government was “walling up,” they said unanimously, and all other parliamentary means, such as inquiries, had now been “exhausted.”
It is, said FDP parliamentary group leader Martin Hagen, “twice a massive waste of taxpayers’ money” – and on the main route this will be noticeable throughout Bavaria if there is a lack of funds for transport in rural areas. Verena Osgyan (Greens) said the museum’s “shady construct” was a “veritable political scandal” with Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) at the center. Florian von Brunn, chairman of the SPD parliamentary group, said it was about the question of what understanding Söder had of law and order. That is “the all-important question for the people in Bavaria”. Söder pushed through a prestige project “breaking all the rules”, which he personally uses.
This means that there will be a total of four investigative committees in the 2023 state election year, in addition to the two already ongoing on the mask affair and the NSU terrorist cell. Four such bodies, considering the history of the state parliament, is “rather average”, said Brunn. Osgyan emphasized that the time was “truly not chosen”. Rather, there have only recently been new findings on the main route, at the museum in the summer, test results from the Supreme Court of Auditors (ORH). The opposition probably wants to dispel the impression that the U-committees are of an electoral nature. A fifth of all members of the state parliament is sufficient for the appointment – which the three factions amply fulfill.
Why is? The Nuremberg branch of the Deutsches Museum will cost the Free State annual rent of 2.8 million euros until 2044, and the contract will run for that long. According to the ORH, the expenses for the museum, including construction financing, rent and estimated operating cost subsidies, will total around 200 million euros by then. Specifically, the Court of Auditors classifies the rental agreement as “landlord-friendly”, and the cost level appears “overall high”, as the ORH announced in its assessment in May. A purchase as a possibly more economical alternative was not considered at all, and there was an incomprehensible pre-determination when selecting the location.
In 2014, the cabinet under Prime Minister Horst Seehofer (CSU) decided on such a museum for Nuremberg as part of the North Bavaria Initiative. As Minister of Finance, Söder was the driving force behind the project in the media; The Ministry of Science is actually formally responsible. In 2016, the Augustinerhof owned by Nuremberg real estate entrepreneur Gerd Schmelzer was selected from initially numerous potential locations. Sebastian Körber (FDP), who recently pushed the debate the hardest, said on Wednesday that it was not surprising given the early determination that an entrepreneur “brought out a maximum profit” in the negotiations. Körber had previously put it this way: “It was Söder’s dream to set up a science fiction museum in his hometown, no matter what the cost.”
The Greens, SPD and FDP suspect a “cover-up” on the main route
It is to be expected that the prime minister will be summoned as a witness in the committee. For example, notes in the files are to be followed up, according to which it was not the Ministry of Science but the Ministry of Finance that was in charge. In 2016, for example, Söder’s then house called internally: “Please move the matter forward quickly and consistently. Augustinerhof would be the solution.” In addition to the rental debate, there were reports of donations made by Schmelzer companies after the contract was signed: two times a good 45,000 euros to the CSU. Entrepreneurs and the party emphatically denied any connection to the museum. There could also be more donations, Körber speculated, “we don’t know.”
The second trunk line is about the fact that, according to the information available so far, the state government had been warned since mid-2020 that construction could be delayed by several years. At the end of 2020, the State Chancellery was also informed by the Bavarian Ministry of Transport about impending cost increases. However, Söder’s government failed to inform the population in the Munich area about the looming disaster. It was not until mid-2022 that Bavaria’s new Minister of Transport, Christian Bernreiter (CSU), publicly admitted that completion, which was last planned for 2028, could be delayed until 2037 and the construction costs could almost double. Greens, SPD and FDP smell “cover-up” and “dilettantism”.
The management of the two U-committees will – according to the usual distribution system – fall to the government factions CSU and Freie Wahlern, the two vice-chairs of the CSU and the AfD. Their deputies Franz Bergmüller and Uli Henkel had also recently called for an underground committee for the main route, saying the public had been “deliberately deceived”. So no one from the traffic light opposition will lead the committees, not even on their behalf.
CSU parliamentary group leader Thomas Kreuzer said on Wednesday that the truth is that the opposition is not interested in enlightenment, but in “election campaigns” and “populism”. The U-committees are “unnecessary”, the facts are on the table and have been discussed many times in the state parliament. Kreuzer even sensed an “abuse” of “parliament’s sharpest sword”. Science Minister Markus Blume recently defended the museum’s rental agreement, saying that such a special property does not have zero-eight-fifteen conditions. When he was CSU general secretary, Blume accused the opposition of “smear theater” in the debate.