Almost unnoticed by the public, people in Bavaria are struggling to clarify the billion-dollar disaster during the expansion of the Munich S-Bahn. Prime Minister Söder testified as the last witness in the investigative committee.
Markus Söder seems to be in the best of moods when he testifies to the “Main Route” investigative committee. The last witness in the fully occupied hall in the Bavarian state parliament is relaxed in front of members of parliament and the media; He sometimes answers questions with his mouth full, chewing a roll. He describes allegations of withholding information for election campaign reasons as “nonsense”.
When committee chairman Bernhard Pohl (free voters) asked him how he reacted in autumn 2020 when he found out about the cost increase from 3.8 billion to 5.2 billion euros and a six-year delay in construction, Söder replies: “Critical, constructive , committed.” The figures, which Deutsche Bahn experts had given in an internal technical discussion, were shortly afterwards described by Deutsche Bahn merely as a “basis for discussion”. “There was concern, but there weren’t any numbers,” says Söder in retrospect. At that time, the corona pandemic was also the dominant topic, which was what preoccupied him as Bavarian Prime Minister at the time.
“The railway is used to bad press”
In front of the investigative committee, he made it clear how he experienced Deutsche Bahn. For Söder, the track is “uncontrollable”. After there were still no official figures from the railways in autumn 2020, he did not think it made sense to go public. Putting pressure on and speculating is useless for Deutsche Bahn: “The Deutsche Bahn is used to bad press, it has never had a good one.” He then left the further steps to determine the costs to his then Minister of Transport Kerstin Schreyer (CSU).
He knew nothing of an escalation in a conversation between the minister and the then Bahn board member Ronald Pofalla. Nor why a planned top-level talk in October 2020 with the then Federal Minister of Transport Andreas Scheuer, Schreyer, the Mayor of Munich Dieter Reiter (SPD), Pofalla and Söder himself failed. Söder describes his relationship with Pofalla with the words: “There are no friends in politics, only interested acquaintances.” Basically, the CSU boss is critical of the system, that the state only pays, but plans and builds the railway, i.e. is the builder and project sponsor.
Söder does not want to have known explosive state chancellery notes
According to Söder, he does not know the explosive notes from the State Chancellery from autumn and winter 2020 on how to deal with the expected cost increases and extensions in construction time. How an employee of the State Chancellery came to write the comment that the problems with the second main route were “not a winning topic” in the election campaign, he could not explain. The Prime Minister even jokes about the comment “dilatory treatment until after the federal election”. He didn’t even know what the foreign word dilatory (delaying) meant, he wasn’t that educated. It is absurd to believe that the topic has not been tackled with the necessary verve because of the forthcoming federal elections.
Söder wants to stick to the project for the second main route, although the costs have now more than doubled to seven billion euros and completion is not expected until 2037. The Prime Minister cannot understand the excitement about the increased costs. “Did anyone think that such a construction project could be cheaper and faster?” he asks. The construction project is one of the largest infrastructure projects in Germany and is important for the entire Munich area. “It has to succeed,” emphasizes Söder.
Opposition does not believe Söder
However, he cannot convince the opposition of this. “The time connections are completely clear,” said the FDP member of parliament Sebastian Körber. “Markus Söder wanted to become Chancellor and left all the alarm messages from his Minister Schreyer.”
SPD MP Inge Aures is also not convinced by Söder’s statements. But she didn’t expect anything else from Söder than “that he turns and turns – and pretends that he doesn’t know anything,” she says Bavarian radio. The file situation is different – it has been proven that there were figures at an early stage. Martin Runge from the Greens sees it similarly: Söder should at least have informed the state parliament much earlier, instead of always saying that the figures from the railways are not yet reliable.