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Others have been seeing the end of their career for days: but Minister Scheuer is able to withstand the pressure, even in the toll committee. But he cannot get rid of the suspicion of lying.
It’s 4:23 in the morning and Andreas Scheuer can pack his bags. The Federal Minister of Transport closes the thick blue folder in which he has leafed over and over again to substantiate the statements made during the investigation commission with documents. Except most of the time I couldn’t find the relevant pages. He gathered the rest of the material shortly before the end, when the party representatives have almost no questions anymore and only the president of the FDP continues to drill.
Increasingly annoyed, Scheuer answers questions from liberal traffic expert Oliver Luksic, sometimes so impatiently and hastily that he deliberately responds with a friendly, “May I ask my question before you answer?” After today, the two days, it must be said that yes, Scheuer must have had enough of the FDP. Because liberals in particular had publicly speculated prior to his appearance that he would not return. The FDP assumed that the Union had summoned Scheuer’s secretary of state, who was on leave, as an additional witness, to artificially extend the committee’s day. With the calculation that after three managers and a secretary of state on the witness stand, questioning the minister would simply no longer be reasonable.
Don’t even hesitate
But Scheuer came. At 11:30 pm he hurried across the lobby to the meeting room behind his bodyguards, and shortly before midnight explained how much he liked being here “to answer questions from the commission of inquiry.” Scheuer said he was only aware of the incriminating documents of the three heads of companies of the toll operator consortium, which the investigation committee had received from the media a few days ago. If you have studied the media, then your grim prognoses for questioning will not have escaped you, whether it is “tight” for Scheuer, the tie is tightening, or the “showdown” is approaching, many saw at least difficult for him. CSU man. Hours ahead, if not the end of your career.
But the minister avoids that for sure at this meeting. It wasn’t a question that would stop him. Clearly formulated sentences, even when no ship has passed the Spree behind the panoramic window of the great Bundestag meeting room for hours. While his secretary of state, Gerhard Schulz, was previously embroiled in some contradictions regarding the importance of discussions between his boss, himself, and the owners of the operating consortium, Scheuer remains strict in his view of things. . The witness is so pleased that he “waited for the question”, that at some point the FDP will ask him to say which question has not yet been asked, but which question Scheuer expected.
The night continues and Scheuer speaks without showing signs of fatigue. But the content gets more leaky. When asked about individual topics that company bosses want to discuss with him, he cannot contribute significantly more than his Secretary of State, referring to the lack of memory. “Mr. Schulz could remember three of the eight topics, Mr. Scheuer four,” SPD President Kirsten Lühmann later summarized. And she dryly evaluates the minister’s appearance: “I could remember one more point.”
The opponents are also sovereign
But even if Scheuer’s appearance is much more sovereign than that of his secretary of state, it does nothing decisive: remove the suspicion that hangs over him that he may have lied to the Bundestag. The CEOs and CEOs of Kapsch Eventim, the merger of companies that was supposed to set up and operate the toll and which is now demanding more than 500 million euros in damages from the federal government, were not only confident, but also they made consistent statements on an important point. done.
The three are sure that Klaus-Peter Schulenberg, head of the ticket distributor CTS Eventim, offered the minister in a conversation at the end of November 2018 to postpone the conclusion of the contract until the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) have passed judgment and be sure that the car toll can come at all. Schulenberg’s partner Georg Kapsch, a global player in the toll business, remembers exactly how Scheuer erased the idea from the table at the ministry. “The defense came immediately,” says Kapsch. “That doesn’t work, the system has to go into operation in 2020.”
The third manager interviewed, Volker Schneble, director of the Autoticket joint venture, was not in Scheuer’s meeting room at the time. But then he ran into the partners in the parking lot in front of the ministry. There they told him the offer. The minutes of the meeting, which has been in the media for days, are based on notes made by Schneble.
Scheuer has to row back
When Scheuer appears before the commission of inquiry, he knows that he has three clear statements against him. Because he himself stated in a survey before the Bundestag in September 2019 that there had been no such offer from the operators to postpone the conclusion of the contract. And as self-assured as Scheuer seems, he has to back down. “From my memory I cannot confirm that the Court of Justice is a problem,” Scheuer says now. A year ago in the Bundestag that sounded very different. The minister then gave the impression that he clearly remembered the meeting and was certain that no such offer had been made.
When asked, Scheuer must now restrict his accusation at that time as well. “He said that his statements in the Bundestag are basically only from his memory,” SPD deputy Lühmann explains to ntv.de. “In this sense, we will now classify his following statements and perhaps also the previous ones.”
The opposition also does not consider credible many of the other responses Scheuer gives the committee. And there are more contradictions between him and the businessmen than just the ECJ question. FDP, Greens and Left intend to request a comparison. Then the three managers and the minister would be questioned about that negotiation.
Observers can only guess how much Scheuer may have already been under internal pressure at this committee meeting. When she has survived the interrogation of almost five hours, she runs through the lobby towards the exit. To the calls and requests for a statement, there was no reaction.
