The traffic light coalition had agreed on a realignment of the center.
(Photo: IMAGO/Mike Schmidt)
Berlin The plan for the German Center for Mobility of the Future is as eloquent as it is vague. There is talk of “strategic knowledge management”, of a “range of tasks covering all modes of transport” and of “networking of departmental institutions”. The house of Federal Transport Minister Volker Wissing (FDP) is planning all of this in order to fill the concept for the new research center, abbreviation: DZM, by predecessor Andreas Scheuer (CSU) with life. Or not?
The revised strategy paper that the ministry sent to the budget committee of the Bundestag comprises 31 pages. Since then, tempers have been heating up behind the scenes – so much so that the committee had to take the deliberations off the agenda at short notice last week.
In 2021, Scheuer announced that it wanted to set up a superlative research center in Munich with a three-digit million sum. Experts from science and business should research future mobility systems in the center with new chairs and a practice campus.
After initial criticism from the householders, Scheuer was able to convince them: the DZM should be given “satellite locations” in the home regions of the then decisive MPs.
The mood turned in favor of the DZM. The first money went to Hamburg, Karlsruhe, Minden and Annaberg-Buchholz. Only the FDP, then in the opposition, raged: All locations were “in constituencies in which members of the grand coalition are strong,” scolded FDP housekeeper Christoph Meyer.
“Agile project groups” instead of “satellite locations”
After the Bundestag elections, the new coalition decided on a “realignment”. In the new concept of the ministry led by the FDP, the householders now had to read about “agile project groups” and that “the establishment of separate research institutions in the DZM” is not planned.
In addition, Wissing’s officials prepared their “comprehensive needs analysis” “without predetermining organizational structures or the legal form”. In concrete terms, this means that there is no figure in the concept that would indicate how much such a research center will cost.
The CSU politician had planned the center during his time as Federal Minister for Transport and Digital Infrastructure.
(Photo: dpa)
There is also no statement about the originally planned location in Munich. First, an economic analysis should follow. “Therefore, no statement can be made about a location for the DZM at the current time,” said the ministry in response to a question from CSU housekeeper Florian Oßner. The concept states that the founding can “only take place step by step”, so “less funds than currently estimated would be required initially”.
In the house itself they call the new proposal “euthanasia with hot air”. In view of the already tight budgets of the federal government, the directive of the transport department reads: There is no money for new projects. Unless the money is saved elsewhere – or organized in the parliamentary process. Let the householders decide whether they consider a new research center necessary.
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Union parliamentary group leader Ulrich Lange (CSU) called the ministry’s approach “a first-class funeral”. Munich’s Lord Mayor Dieter Reiter (SPD) said when asked that the decision was “incomprehensible”. Due to the interaction of universities, industrial companies such as BMW and Siemens “as well as a very lively and creative start-up scene, Munich is more suitable for the headquarters of the DZM than any other location in Germany”.
The new concept causes “budgetary problems”
But the die seems to have been cast. In any case, the householders are mainly discussing the future of the satellite locations. Money from the budget title for the DZM has already flowed there. But the householders blocked it last year – until the minister presented a concept in which “the planned branch of the German Center for Mobility of the Future in Karlsruhe and the planned ‘Wireless Competence Center’ (HAWICC) in Hamburg, the planned ‘Smart Rail Connectivity Campus’ (SRCC) in Annaberg-Buchholz and the planned ‘Rail Campus OWL’ in Minden.
However, they are “no longer planned”, as the concept states. Critics from the SPD parliamentary group demand: “The locations should be secured.” They are “not satisfied” with the Greens and refer to the decision of the budget holders. “We can not say more about this in the current process.”
And in the case of the FDP, the experts referred to “budgetary problems”: So far, there has only been one budget title in which money is reserved for the DZM – and with it for the satellites. In order to receive the funds for the locations without the DZM, the householders have to create a new title in the consultations for the 2024 budget.
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Wissing’s officials are fine with that. They recommend reallocating “financial resources that are freed up” and “supporting the projects in an adapted form independently of the DZM”. The householders now want to decide in the middle of the month.
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