The city has suffered a severe setback in its plan to expand electromobility. It has to re-tender the contract for the construction and operation of 2,700 new charging points in the city – even though the tender has already been running for three years. The reason: The South Bavaria Public Procurement Chamber, which is part of the government of Upper Bavaria, has decided that the city must return the procurement process to the “status before the contract announcement”, i.e. everything starts again from the beginning.
The Chamber justifies this by saying that the city of Munich incorrectly advertised the service as a service contract and not as a concession. Different legal procedural requirements apply to the awarding of concessions than to the awarding of service contracts.
A concession is a type of partnership between the public sector and a company. This is particularly common in infrastructure projects. Unlike a public contract, where a company receives a fixed amount for a specific service, the concessionaire bears the financial risk himself.
The award process was started in 2020 by the then Department of Health and Environment under speaker Stephanie Jacobs. Christine Kugler, head of the Climate and Environmental Protection Department, which was newly founded in 2021, now says that it quickly became apparent that various reasons spoke for a different type of tender. “Unfortunately, the process could not be stopped because we had to expect claims for damages.”
Mobility officer Georg Dunkel says that there are already plans in place that will make it possible to further build up the charging infrastructure for cars in the city as quickly as possible. The aim is now to develop a suitable procedure for a smooth application for locations quickly and legally.
SPD traffic expert Nikolaus Gradl called for an expansion of the charging service in August. It is a “tragedy” that the administration spent more than 400,000 euros on legal advice five years ago and was unable to advance the expansion of the charging infrastructure in Munich.