The Berlin Local Court has approved a criminal charge against Andreas Scheuer, the former Federal Minister of Transport for the CSU, who now faces accusations of making false statements related to the failed car toll. A court spokesperson confirmed the indictment on Friday. The Berlin public prosecutor alleges that the CSU politician lied during the Bundestag’s inquiry committee investigating the toll.
Scheuer has strongly rejected the accusations. His lawyer stated back in August, when the charges became public, that his client firmly countered these claims. A specific date for the start of the proceedings in the economic criminal court has yet to be set, as negotiations are ongoing with those involved.
The car toll, a high-profile project of the former red-black coalition government, was deemed illegal and stopped by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in June 2019. Following this, an investigation committee examined possible errors on Scheuer’s part. The committee convened in December 2019 and concluded its work in the summer of 2021.
The main criticism focused on the fact that Scheuer finalized the operator contracts for the car toll as early as the end of 2018, before the ECJ had established definitive legal certainty. According to the prosecution, Scheuer and Schulz allegedly made “deliberate false statements” during their testimony before the committee. The charges specifically claim that when asked by members of parliament whether the operator had offered to postpone signing the contracts until after the ECJ ruling during a meeting on November 29, 2018, both politicians “stated that they could not recall such a deferral offer” contradicting their actual memory of the event.
