The CSU chairman Markus Söder regretted the million-dollar aftermath of the failed car toll. “The toll thing actually went badly and simply, and in the end it was a real problem,” said the Bavarian Prime Minister on Wednesday evening in ZDF’s “heute journal”.
The federal government is to pay 243 million euros to the companies actually intended to operate the toll – a failed project by the then Federal Minister of Transport and Söder party friend Andreas Scheuer. “The number is now there in the room, and that’s why it’s just annoying, that’s true,” said Söder. The Federal Ministry of Transport is also examining recourse claims against Scheuer. However, it is not yet clear whether they will also be asserted, it said recently.
The car toll was stopped in June 2019 by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) as illegal. The federal government terminated the contracts with the intended operators shortly after the verdict, and they initially demanded 560 million euros in damages. Scheuer rejected the company’s claim. This was followed by arbitration, which ended with less than half the sum. Scheuer himself had said that he could understand the resentment and took the criticism to heart. However, the car toll was “neither a sole CSU nor a Scheuer project”.