The Union party has firmly rejected the proposed decriminalization of fare evasion put forward by Justice Minister Stefanie Hubig (SPD). Speaking to the “Rheinische Post” on Wednesday, Union deputy Günter Krings (CDU) stated, “One can only wonder about this renewed proposal”. He added that the Ministry of Justice should instead focus on the real issues within criminal law. Krings clarified that decriminalizing fare evasion will not happen while the Union is in power, emphasizing that the issue is about a “jointly detrimental fraud offense” not merely the fact that fare evasion is illegal. According to the legal expert, if fare control officers could no longer detain a suspicious person until the police arrived without grounds stemming from criminal law, significantly more passengers would travel without tickets. This, in turn, would require substantial increases in fares for everyone else to compensate. Krings concluded that such a policy would not be socially equitable, arguing instead that it would raise costs for honest passengers. He also pointed out that this topic had already been thoroughly discussed and subsequently discarded during the coalition negotiations between the Union and the SPD. Meanwhile, Hubig finds support from the Left party, where Left deputy Clara Bünger told the “Rheinische Post” that it is a scandal that poverty is still criminalized in the country simply because people cannot afford a ticket, calling it “class justice”. However, Bünger warned that the federal government cannot continue to avoid the core problem-the unaffordable ticket prices-if they wish to reduce fare evasion. She suggested that a return to a low-cost ticket, like the former 9-euro ticket, would be a sensible approach, asserting that because mobility is a fundamental right, it cannot be a luxury.
Politics
