Politics Prosecution against ex-minister in Germany - accusation of making false statements
The Berlin public prosecutor's office has brought charges against former German Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer on the accusation of making false statements before the Bundestag's committee of inquiry into the failed car toll.
20.08.2025, 09:13
SDA
Former State Secretary Gerhard Schulz has also been charged, as a spokesperson for the public prosecutor's office told the German Press Agency (dpa). The newspaper "Bild" had previously reported.
Scheuer, a former politician from the Bavarian Christian Democratic party CSU, had denied the accusation at the time, which has been legally pursued since 2022. The car toll - a prestige project of the CSU in the then German government of Chancellor Angela Merkel - had been stopped as illegal by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in 2019.
Scheuer now told the Bild newspaper: "The decision to bring charges now is incomprehensible to me and concerns me. The motives and the timing of the charges are incomprehensible to me and appear to be more politically motivated. After such a long period of investigation, the public prosecutor is using the so-called "summer slump" in the media to bring charges." Scheuer could not initially be reached for a dpa inquiry.
Investigation proceedings initiated in 2022
In May 2022, the public prosecutor's office in the German capital had opened an investigation against Scheuer and former State Secretary for Transport Schulz on suspicion of making false statements to the parliamentary committee of inquiry. At the time, there was an initial suspicion that Scheuer and Schulz had given "deliberately untruthful" testimony.
According to the German Criminal Code, anyone who gives false testimony as a witness or expert witness in court or before another body responsible for examining witnesses or experts under oath is punished with a prison sentence of three months to five years
Car toll was a prestige project of the CSU
Specifically, the issue was that Scheuer had told the committee of inquiry in October 2020 that, to the best of his recollection, there had been no offer from the designated toll operator consortium to postpone the conclusion of the car toll contract until after the expected ECJ ruling. Managers of the designated toll operator companies had reported to the committee that Scheuer had received such an offer, which he had rejected.
The committee of inquiry dealt with possible mistakes made by Scheuer, who was transport minister from March 2018 to December 2021. The opposition accused him of serious mistakes in budgetary and public procurement law at the expense of taxpayers. He had concluded contracts for the car toll even before legal certainty existed at the ECJ. Scheuer always denied the accusations.
As a result of the toll debacle, the German state had to pay 243 million euros (around 229 million Swiss francs) in damages to the once intended operators. This was the result of an agreement following arbitration proceedings. Scheuer said in May 2022 that he had testified truthfully before the committee of inquiry: "I firmly assume that a review will not come to a different conclusion either." According to the information provided by the public prosecutor's office at the time, the investigation was based on several criminal complaints from private individuals.
Scheuer resigned from the Bundestag in April 2024. He has since founded a consultancy firm.
