German government wants
ex-minister to foot $267 million bill for a failed highway toll plan

TCSN
WORLD DESK

The
German government is considering whether it can make former Transport Minister
Andreas Scheuer foot at least part of the quarter-billion euro compensation it
has to pay a private company over a failed plan to introduce highway tolls.
Scheuer, who was in office

from 2018 until 2021, had insisted on the total
despite expert warnings that it would unfairly penalise drivers from other EU
countries. A European Union court ruled it illegal in 2019, prompting a lengthy
arbitration procedure with the company hired to set up the toll system that
ended in a 243-million euro ($267-million) settlement last week. Scheuer’s
successor, Volker Wissing, told German weekly Bild am Sonntag that taxpayers shouldn’t have to bear all of the cost
of “this serious political mistake.” “We will look the legal situation
very closely and carefully examine whether and to what amount compensation
claims (against Scheuer) are possible,” he was quoted saying Sunday. Scheuer
is a member of the conservative, Bavaria-only Christian Social Union that is
part of the biggest opposition bloc in Germany’s federal parliament.