Countries bunker local transport money in the amount of 4.6 billion

commuter train

The states are responsible for local transport, but demand a lot of money from the federal government.

(Photo: IMAGO/Frank Sorge)

Berlin The budget politicians of the traffic light coalition are threatening the federal states to stop providing additional funds for local public transport. The budget committee made a corresponding decision on Wednesday. It is available to the Handelsblatt.

In it, the committee calls on the federal government and the federal states to submit “correct and complete proof of use, including unspent funds, annually by September 30 of the following year”. In future, the federal states should also raise “an appropriate and relevant proportion of their own state funds” due to the high importance of public transport for climate protection. Before the householders release further funds in the future, the federal states must explain to the federal government how much they are investing in local transport themselves.

The trigger for the decision of the householders is a report by the Federal Court of Auditors, according to which the federal states are hoarding billions that they should have invested in local transport on behalf of the federal government long ago.

With the decision, the budget politicians are positioning themselves in the ongoing negotiations on the future of local transport. The federal and state governments have been discussing an “expansion and modernization pact” for a year now. The talks are faltering because the states are insisting on more money from the federal government.

An important project is the planned, nationwide valid “Deutschlandticket”, which the Bundestag intends to adopt this Thursday. It is a novelty, since according to the Basic Law, the federal states organize local transport and are therefore also responsible for the tariffs, while the federal government primarily has to ensure adequate financing.

Auditors alarm the budget politicians in the federal government

The Federal Court of Auditors has now established that the federal states are not properly informing the federal government as to whether they are using the allocated funds for local transport correctly. The auditors use the report for 2018, which the federal government submitted in January 2022, as evidence. The federal government came to the conclusion that the federal states had not spent around 666 million euros out of a total of around 8.5 billion euros.

The auditors investigated the federal states and found: Since 2008, the annual shortfall has added up from 338 million euros year after year to 4.6 billion euros in 2018. Because of “the lack of information from some countries”, the amount could even be “higher stand out”. For 2019, the total is even higher.

Some of the federal states maintain so-called transport authorities that organize local transport. If the federal government’s money has gone there but not been invested, the federal states still report this as having been spent.

The lack of transparency has been a point of contention between the federal and state governments for years. All the more so as the federal government transfers more and more money. According to current legislation, the federal states will receive almost 14 billion euros from the federal government in 2031, with which they are to finance local transport. It is currently a little over ten billion.

Countries should invest more in local transport

The Court of Auditors recommends that the federal government introduce a clean database as part of the negotiations for a modernization pact in order to be able to better control the funds paid out. The federal government should also push for the states to participate more financially. “In 2018, many countries did not give a high priority to financing public transport from their own resources,” the auditors note. “Instead, they repeatedly demand an increase in regionalization funds.” Funds from other federal grants are also often used to invest in local transport.

“If nine out of 16 federal states don’t even finance 20 percent of the funds for public transport themselves, then that’s a scandal,” explained FDP budget politician Frank Schäffler. “The federal states make a slender foot and only hold out their hands to the federal government. Local public transport is a core task of the federal states.”

Greens housekeeper Paula Piechotta said people have a right to know who finances local transport more and who less. “We need transparency as to which federal states are responsible for up to 60 percent of public transport funds and which federal states only pay four percent of the funds and let the federal government pay the rest,” she demanded.

The auditors consider it “urgent” that the federal states participate more. “Otherwise there is a risk that public transport will be increasingly perceived as a federal task due to the unequal financing conditions, even though it is one of the core tasks of the federal states.”

The federal government is already trying to prevent this with the Deutschlandticket. Even if the idea came about in the traffic light coalition, the states should be responsible.

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