# Andreas Scheuer

# Andreas Scheuer

Andreas Scheuer (born 26 September 1974 in Passau, Bavaria) is a German politician of the [Christian Social Union in Bavaria](/organizations/christian-social-union-in-bavaria) (CSU) and a Roman Catholic. He was a member of the Bundestag from 2002 until 1 April 2024, in the 20th electoral term as the directly elected member for constituency 229 (Passau). From 2009 to 2013 he was parliamentary state secretary to the federal minister of transport, building and urban development and the federal government's coordinator for freight transport and logistics. He then served as secretary-general of the CSU from December 2013 to March 2018, and his Bundestag biography records him as federal minister of transport and digital infrastructure from March 2018 to October 2021.

On 14 March 2018 the Bundestag swore him in as federal minister of transport and digital infrastructure when [Angela Merkel](/people/angela-merkel) was elected chancellor for the fourth time and her new cabinet took office. The project that came to define the ministry was a passenger-car infrastructure charge promoted by the CSU: the fee was to be offset for German drivers by a lower vehicle tax, so that in practice it would fall on foreign drivers. Scheuer's ministry signed operator contracts before the European Court of Justice ruled.

On 18 June 2019 the court, in case C-591/17, held that Germany had breached EU law by introducing the charge and, at the same time, a vehicle-tax relief for keepers of vehicles registered in Germany at least equal to the charge paid. The transport ministry terminated the 2018 contracts with CTS Eventim and Kapsch TrafficCom the same day; the prosecution later described those contracts as running for twelve years with a volume of about two billion euros. A subsequent settlement committed the federal government to pay 243 million euros, a figure Transport Minister Volker Wissing confirmed in July 2023 after the Bundestag budget committee agreed. Bayerischer Rundfunk, citing the transport ministry, has put the overall cost to taxpayers at about 270 million euros.

The Bundestag's second committee of inquiry of the 19th electoral term examined whether that loss could have been avoided by waiting for the judgment. On 20 August 2025 the Berlin public prosecution office charged Scheuer and former state secretary Gerhard Schulz with unsworn false testimony. The indictment alleges that, questioned between 1 October 2020 and 28 January 2021, they said they could not recall an offer made at a meeting on 29 November 2018 to sign the contracts only after the court's decision, and that this account contradicted their actual memory. Both defendants deny the allegation. On 21 September 2026 Bayerischer Rundfunk reported that the case was before the Landgericht Berlin in Moabit. Scheuer gave up his Bundestag seat on 27 March 2024 and left parliament at the end of 1 April 2024; the Bavarian state returning officer found an unbalanced CSU overhang, so no list successor took the seat. He announced the resignation himself on 1 April 2024, and the Bundestag confirmed it.

## Early life and education

### Schooling in Passau

Andreas Franz Scheuer was born on 26 September 1974 in Passau, Bavaria, and is a Roman Catholic. In 1994 he passed the Abitur, the school-leaving qualification for university entrance, at the humanistic Gymnasium Leopoldinum in Passau.

### University of Passau

He then studied at the University of Passau. His first course was history and social studies for teaching at a Realschule, the intermediate secondary school; he passed the first state examination in 1998. A Magister in political science, economics and sociology at the same university followed, completed in 2001.

The *Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung* later reported that the political-science Magister thesis had been graded *befriedigend* ("satisfactory") and was not good enough for a doctorate in Passau. At least one of the two reviewers, the paper said, had serious doubts about its scholarly quality. Heinrich Oberreuter, the Passau political scientist who examined Scheuer orally, said Scheuer had not pressed the professors toward "higher academic honours."

### Doctorate from Charles University

In 2004 the Faculty of Social Sciences at Charles University in Prague awarded him the PhDr. (*doktor filozofie*) on the basis of a rigorosum, the Czech procedure often called a "small doctorate," rather than a research degree of the German type. The German-language thesis, *Die politische Kommunikation der CSU im System Bayerns* ("The Political Communication of the CSU in the Bavarian System"), was supervised by the political scientist Rudolf Kučera and published in 2005 by Books on Demand in Norderstedt, running to 294 pages. Kučera told the *Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung* that a German submission was normal, that Czech had not been required, and that Scheuer had not attended courses in Prague. Scheuer's spokesman said learning Czech was unnecessary because the supervisor spoke German.

*[Der Spiegel](/organizations/der-spiegel)* reported that he could use the bare abbreviation "Dr." only in Bavaria and Berlin, and only "PhDr." elsewhere, although the book styled him "Dr. Andreas Scheuer, MdB." A Passau prosecutor's investigation into misuse of a title was discontinued. *Spiegel* reported that a later Bavarian limit on unmarked degrees below the third Bologna level came after the award, and that he was not legally required to give the title up.

In January 2014, when he was CSU secretary-general, the *Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung* identified unmarked text. A passage on the former Bavarian minister-president Franz Josef Strauß followed *Wahlanalyse und Wahlprognose 2002. Die Bundestagswahl im Unterricht*, issued by the Federal Agency for Civic Education with the University of Münster, and reproduced a hyphen inserted into Strauß's first name. Wolfgang Löwer, the German ombudsman for science, called passages "classic plagiarism" and asked that the whole work be examined before any finding of systematic deceit. Volker Rieble, a Munich law professor, told the *Süddeutsche Zeitung* that paragraphs on Bavarian referendums matched a publication of the Bavarian state centre for political education, but that the overlaps were few and short.

On 17 January 2014 Scheuer told *Bild* that he would stop using the title entirely "in order to avoid a practice in the use of the title that is hardly manageable," and confirmed that to *Spiegel*.

Charles University said the material behind the reports had been non-public and unknown to it in 2004. On 20 January 2014 it retrieved the file, digitised the thesis and tested it with Urkund and Theses; those checks found no match to digital sources. Because the tools covered only electronic texts, it asked the National Archive for the printed volume. Scheuer requested a review on 21 January. No formal complaint had been filed; the review began from the press reports.

After several months the ethics commission, a spokesman told *Welt am Sonntag*, found that three passages had been taken over without being marked. "In the context of the entire work," it regarded them "rather as a summary and not as a serious breach of ethical rules," and it found no systematic intent to deceive. The *Süddeutsche Zeitung* reported the same conclusion. The plagiarism allegation was not upheld, the PhDr. remained in place, and Scheuer did not resume using the title.

## Rise in the CSU and election to the Bundestag

### Junge Union and local party offices

Scheuer joined the Christian Social Union in Bavaria and the Junge Union in 1994. From 1997 to 2003 he chaired the Junge Union in the city of Passau. He was a member of the Junge Union's national council, the Deutschlandrat, from 1999 to 2001, and of its Bavarian executive from 2001 to 2003. From 2003 to 2007 he chaired the Junge Union in Lower Bavaria. In 1998 and 1999 he worked for Minister-President [Edmund Stoiber](/people/edmund-stoiber) on the campaigns for the Bavarian Landtag, the Bundestag and the [European Parliament](/organizations/european-parliament), including the organization of media tours.

Inside the CSU he was elected to the Lower Bavaria district executive in 2001 and, in 2003, to the board of the Passau-Stadt district association. A Bundestag biography from the 16th electoral term describes the Passau-Stadt office as deputy chairman. On the evening of 19 February 2016 a district congress in Landshut elected him chairman of the CSU in Lower Bavaria. He was the only candidate and received 179 of 190 valid votes, 94.2 percent. He succeeded [Manfred Weber](/people/manfred-weber), chairman of the association since 2008, who left after being elected in November 2015 as one of five deputy chairmen of the CSU under Horst Seehofer; the party statute did not allow a deputy party chairman to lead a Bezirksverband at the same time.

On 1 February 2023 Scheuer said he would not stand again at the district congress set for 8 July. He argued that the Lower Bavaria chair had been held by someone with a prominent office in the state or in parliament, and he proposed Bavarian transport minister Christian Bernreiter as his successor. Scheuer did not run at the congress in Dingolfing, and the 164 delegates elected Bernreiter, without an opponent, with 98.1 percent of the vote.

### Passau city council

Scheuer was elected to the Passau city council in 2002, in the same year he entered the Bundestag. Disclosures filed for the 15th and 16th electoral terms also list an unpaid seat on the administrative board of the city's Medienzentrale. He kept the council seat alongside the parliamentary mandate: filings in the 20th electoral term still recorded him as a member of the Passau council.

### Bundestag mandates and committee work

At the 2002 federal election the Passau constituency, then numbered 230, was won by the incumbent Klaus Rose of the CSU with 64.8 percent of the first votes. Scheuer stood in 14th place on the CSU state list in Bavaria and entered the Bundestag, the federal parliament of Germany, through that list rather than by a direct mandate.

In the 15th Bundestag, from 2002 to 2005, he was a full member of the Committee on Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth and of the subcommittees on civic engagement and new media, and a deputy member of the Petitions Committee and the Budget Committee. He was also a deputy member of the German group in the [Inter-Parliamentary Union](/organizations/inter-parliamentary-union).

From 2005 he held Passau as a directly elected member. Tagesschau, citing the Federal Statistical Office, reported 58.5 percent of the first votes for him in constituency 230. In 2009, after the constituency was renumbered 229, the Federal Returning Officer's count, as carried by Tagesschau, was 46.5 percent, or 54,283 votes. The Bundestag again recorded a direct mandate in constituency 229 for the 18th, 19th and 20th terms. Final results published by the Federal Returning Officer give the CSU first-vote share in that constituency—the votes for its direct candidate—as 59.8 percent (69,428 votes) in 2013, 47.5 percent (61,835 votes) in 2017 and 30.7 percent (41,530 votes) in 2021, when the SPD share was 20.9 percent.

In the 16th term, before he took federal government office in 2009, he was a full member of the Committee on Transport, Building and Urban Development and of the Parliamentary Advisory Council on Sustainable Development, and a deputy member of the health and budget committees and of the subcommittees on civic engagement and new media. In the 20th term, at the constitutive meeting of the Committee on the Affairs of the European Union on 15 December 2021, he was one of the eleven full members from the CDU/CSU parliamentary group. The mandate that began in 2002 lasted until 1 April 2024.

## Parliamentary State Secretary for Transport

### Appointment in the second Merkel cabinet

After the 2009 federal election, the [Christian Democratic Union](/organizations/christian-democratic-union-of-germany) (CDU), the Christian Social Union (CSU) and the Free Democratic Party (FDP) formed the second cabinet of Chancellor Angela Merkel. On 28 October 2009 the Bundestag re-elected Merkel, and the federal ministers took the oath, among them [Peter Ramsauer](/people/peter-ramsauer) (CSU) as Federal Minister for Transport, Building and Urban Development. Four days earlier the coalition had named the parliamentary state secretaries at his ministry: Enak Ferlemann (CDU), Andreas Scheuer (CSU) and Jan Mücke (FDP).

Holders of the office must be Bundestag members and support the minister to whom they are attached. The Federal President appoints them on a proposal by the Chancellor made in agreement with that minister. Scheuer’s Bundestag biography, drawn from the member’s own information, records that from October 2009 to December 2013 he was parliamentary state secretary to the transport minister and coordinator of the federal government for freight transport and logistics. The post ended in December 2013.

### Responsibilities

The ministry’s November 2010 freight plan described the coordinator as a standing contact for the sector: the central interlocutor on freight and logistics, responsible for aligning work with other departments and for steering the plan’s implementation. Ramsauer credited Scheuer with leading the drafting of the *Aktionsplan Güterverkehr und Logistik – Logistikinitiative für Deutschland*, a revision of an earlier master plan. Scheuer’s foreword tied it to the coalition agreement’s aim of strengthening Germany as a logistics location with industry. He stated the government’s line as enabling mobility rather than obstructing it, and gave rail and inland waterways a larger share of freight in order to relieve the roads.

The plan listed 30 measures under five aims: strengthening the logistics location; raising the efficiency of every mode; linking the modes; reconciling traffic growth with environmental and climate protection; and supporting working and training conditions. It was presented as the product of discussion with companies and associations. Priority items included the national ports concept, freight-related parts of the 2009 airport concept, motorway roadworks management and combined transport. New measures included a multi-state trial of extra-long lorries and a nationwide trial of freight trains longer than 750 metres. The foreword cited a [World Bank](/organizations/world-bank) ranking of Germany as the leading logistics location, 2009 sector turnover above 200 billion euros, and 2.7 million jobs. For promotion abroad the ministry undertook to spend 600,000 euros a year through 2013, matched at least equally by industry.

The longer-lorry trial rested on a ministry ordinance of 19 December 2011, issued without the Bundesrat. In force from 1 January 2012 until the end of 2016, it allowed certain freight combinations to reach 25.25 metres, and one type 24 metres, and required participation in a study by the Federal Highway Research Institute. In abstract judicial review, 214 Bundestag members from the Social Democratic Party and Alliance 90/[The Greens](/organizations/the-greens), and the governments of Baden-Württemberg and Schleswig-Holstein, challenged the legal basis, the lack of Bundesrat consent, and the extent of parliamentary involvement. On 1 April 2014 the Second Senate of the Federal [Constitutional Court](/organizations/constitutional-court) held the ordinance compatible with the Basic Law; consent of the Bundesrat was not required for this general exception.

On 31 August 2012 Scheuer launched a ministry prize for university teaching in freight and logistics, first offered under the theme “green logistics – sustainability”, to publicise such degrees and attract graduates. In June 2013, at the third national freight conference in Nuremberg, he and Ramsauer gave the prize to Heilbronn University’s transport and logistics programme. Scheuer, the jury chair, cited its treatment of sustainability across the curriculum.

## Secretary-general of the CSU

### Appointment and party role

On 15 December 2013 the executive of the Christian Social Union in Bavaria met in Munich as chairman Horst Seehofer confirmed the party's posts in the new grand coalition. [Alexander Dobrindt](/people/alexander-dobrindt) left the secretary-generalship to become federal minister of transport and digital infrastructure. Andreas Scheuer, the Passau member of the Bundestag and until then parliamentary state secretary for transport under Peter Ramsauer, was reported the same day as the new secretary-general. His Bundestag biography dates the office from December 2013.

The choice followed a quarrel. At a CSU Christmas gathering in 2011 Seehofer had told Scheuer to do a "political internship" after Scheuer challenged the financing of the limited Danube expansion Seehofer wanted in Lower Bavaria. *[Die Welt](/organizations/die-welt)* wrote that the appointment cut against Seehofer's reputation for bearing grudges. It cast the post as charge of strategy and tactics and as a springboard, with municipal elections due in March 2014 and the European election in May. The same account noted that the education ministers' conference had accepted his Czech doctorate; the dispute did not block the appointment.

He left with the next coalition. On 4 March 2018, the cabinet list still open, Seehofer called deputy secretary-general [Markus Blume](/people/markus-blume) the favorite if the post fell vacant—"a safe bet" for the Bavarian state campaign, "reflective, strategic and argumentative." The CSU chronicle records that Blume succeeded him on 14 March 2018, when Scheuer entered the federal cabinet, and that [Daniela Ludwig](/people/daniela-ludwig) became deputy.

### Campaigns and public statements

The first elections under Scheuer were losses from a high base. In March 2014 the CSU took 39.7 percent in the combined Bavarian city- and district-council vote, down from 40.0 percent in 2008 and its weakest such result since 1960; the SPD fell to 20.7 percent and Alliance 90/The Greens rose to 10.2 percent. In the 2014 European election its share in Bavaria was 40.5 percent, 7.6 points below 2009.

During the refugee influx he made cultural adaptation a condition of staying. On 6 October 2015 he said in Munich that obeying the Basic Law was "a pure matter of course and has long since not been enough," and that a "German *Leitkultur*"—"our traditions, our way of life and our common values"—had to be the standard. Integration could not mean meeting "halfway" so that "a new *Leitkultur*" emerged: "There is only one direction with the *Leitkultur*: accept our values." In a *Welt* interview of 13 April 2016 he called for an "Islam law." Political Islam, he said, "undermines people integrating with us." Money for mosques or Islamic kindergartens from abroad, "for example from Turkey or from Saudi Arabia," should stop; imams should be trained in Germany, "share our basic values," and preach in German, because "enlightened Europe must cultivate its own Islam." "Multiculturalism has failed. Anyone who does not integrate must reckon with having to leave." [Deutsche Welle](/organizations/deutsche-welle) quoted Bekir Alboga of the Turkish-Islamic Union (DITIB) calling such a law unconstitutional, discriminatory and helpful to [the Alternative](/organizations/the-alternative) for Germany.

On 15 September 2016, at the Regensburg press club, a line on deportations caused a sharper row. After a first, inexact press version, *Der Spiegel* printed the Bayerischer Rundfunk recording: "Excuse the language, the worst thing is a football-playing, altar-serving Senegalese who has been here for over three years—because you'll never deport him again. But asylum law wasn't made for him; he's an economic refugee." He meant rejected applicants who become hard to remove after a long stay. Regensburg vicar general Michael Fuchs objected to blaming altar service and sports clubs. SPD deputy Karamba Diaby said the Union was chasing the AfD, and *Die Welt* reported Green co-leader Simone Peter writing that one could call Scheuer a "disgusting racist." The SPD and the Greens demanded his resignation. Scheuer called the sentence a deliberate exaggeration and said he had praised volunteers. On 20 September, at the CSU Landtag retreat at Kloster Banz, Seehofer said, "I see no cause to dismiss Andi Scheuer," while telling him to speak with critics, above all from the churches. He stayed.

In the 2017 federal campaign an asylum cap and a left-of-center majority were his tests of the CSU line. After the legal-affairs committee scheduled same-sex marriage against Union votes, he told the *Rheinische Post* on 28 June that this was "the test case for red-red-green" and that the SPD was breaking the coalition by siding with the Greens and [Die Linke](/organizations/die-linke). On 30 June the Bundestag passed the bill by 393 to 226, with four abstentions. Scheuer was among the 225 CDU/CSU noes, as was Chancellor Angela Merkel; 75 Union deputies voted yes. In a *Welt* chat on 11 September he answered "Yes! Yes means yes" to whether there would be no government with the CSU without an upper limit, tied 200,000 a year to the country's "capacity limit," and said 2015 "will not be repeated." He called Seehofer's phrase "rule of injustice" (*Herrschaft des Unrechts*) for Merkel's decision "very correct," and ruled out black-green. The CSU's Bavarian second-vote share was 38.8 percent (2,869,688 votes), down 10.5 points, against 44.2 percent of first votes; turnout was 78.1 percent.

## Minister of Transport and Digital Infrastructure

### Appointment in the fourth Merkel cabinet

On 14 March 2018, after the Bundestag re-elected Angela Merkel chancellor, its president swore in the ministers of the new CDU/CSU–[Social Democratic Party of Germany](/organizations/social-democratic-party-of-germany) cabinet. The record of that sitting lists Andreas Scheuer of the Christian Social Union in Bavaria as Federal Minister for Transport and Digital Infrastructure. He succeeded to a department that Alexander Dobrindt had left after the 2017 election to lead the CSU's Bundestag group and join coalition talks. [Christian Schmidt](/people/christian-schmidt), already agriculture minister, held transport as well until the new government was formed.

The portfolio covered federal roads, railways, aviation and parts of digital infrastructure. Scheuer's Bundestag biography, based on members' own information, dates the office from March 2018 to October 2021. That October ending follows the Basic Law, not the day a successor was sworn in. Article 69 provides that a minister's office ends when a new Bundestag convenes, and that, if the chancellor or the federal president asks, the minister must continue the business until a successor is named. The 20th Bundestag opened on 26 October 2021, so the regular term ended then and Scheuer stayed on only as a caretaker. On 8 December 2021 the Bundestag elected [Olaf Scholz](/people/mig-olaf-scholz) chancellor and swore in the new ministers. [Volker Wissing](/people/volker-wissing) of the Free Democratic Party (Germany) took the renamed Ministry for Digital Affairs and Transport.

### Infrastructure, rail and roads

On 1 January 2021 construction and operation of the federal motorways passed from the states to the federally owned Autobahn GmbH, which Scheuer presented as a way to build and maintain the Autobahn network faster and more cheaply. The Federal Audit Office, which had followed the reform since 2017, reported serious faults: pay about 10 percent above the usual federal scale; consultants hired without testing need or value for money, at more than four times the original sum, and without a ministry overview of the contracts; and state cooperation deals that the auditors said conflicted with the constitutional split of tasks. Simplification was not yet visible, and planning had not transferred because the timetable had slipped.

He rejected a general motorway speed limit. After a government climate group discussed 130 km/h, he called the idea contrary to all common sense and, in *Bild am Sonntag*, an old and unrealistic demand, arguing that the advisory speed worked. *Der Spiegel* noted limits on 7,640 kilometres, about 30 percent of the network, against 18,150 without, and 409 deaths on German motorways in 2017, with excessive speed the main cause.

In October 2018 he presented an expert draft of a national clockface timetable, the Deutschlandtakt, to be taken forward by a "future alliance for rail" of government, companies, associations and unions. He said the Swiss-style timetable would make rail more punctual, faster and more reliable. From 1 January 2020 Deutsche Bahn cut long-distance fares by about 10 percent after the coalition climate package reduced value-added tax on those tickets from 19 to 7 percent. The company said it would pass the cut on in full so that more people would choose rail over cars and aircraft, while noting that the Deutschlandtakt, aimed at by 2030, still depended on more trains and track.

Court-ordered driving bans over nitrogen dioxide framed the diesel talks. In November 2018 Scheuer and German manufacturers agreed that trade-in discounts would stay the main offer. In the most polluted areas, Volkswagen and Daimler would put up to €3,000 a vehicle toward exhaust treatment of older diesels, which could include hardware retrofits; BMW refused hardware retrofits but offered the same sum for other options, such as a new car. The separate passenger-car toll, the operator contracts and the judgment of the [Court of Justice of the European Union](/organizations/justice-cjeu) are covered in the next section.

### Digital networks, climate and mobility policy

The auction of mobile spectrum was run by the Federal Network Agency, a regulator attached to the economics ministry. The sale of 420 MHz in the 2 GHz and 3.6 GHz bands ended in Mainz on 12 June 2019 after 497 rounds. [Deutsche Telekom](/organizations/deutsche-telekom), Vodafone, Telefónica and new entrant Drillisch Netz paid €6,549,651,000. The agency's president called the result the start of 5G in Germany and said the licences carried coverage obligations. In 2024 the Cologne Administrative Court held the award rules unlawful. It found "massive" influence by Scheuer's ministry, contrary to the agency's independence under European Union law, and said the agency would likely have decided differently without it. At issue was the refusal of a duty on network owners to let operators without their own infrastructure use the networks at regulated prices. Licence conditions had required 100 Mbit/s for 98 percent of households in each state by the end of 2022.

Where those operators did not find building worthwhile, Scheuer planned a federal mobile-infrastructure company in Naumburg. In January 2021 *Der Spiegel* reported that the Federal Audit Office accused the ministry of sending information too late and of accepting that this would obstruct the audit: material demanded by the budget committee arrived on 15 December 2020, a day before the company was founded. The auditors also objected that its task was being widened from filling gaps in existing networks toward 5G.

The cabinet's 2030 climate programme, adopted during his tenure, put a carbon price on transport and heating fuels from 2021. After mediation it started at €25 a tonne, rising to €55 by 2025, with a corridor of €55 to €65 in 2026. The transport result was largely not structural. In 2020 the sector emitted 146 million tonnes, under its 150-million-tonne allowance, but the Federal Environment Agency traced most of the 19-million-tonne drop from 2019 to the first lockdown, including almost 60 percent less carbon dioxide from domestic aviation, and said the sector could not rely on those figures. In 2021 emissions were 1.2 percent higher and about three million tonnes over the 145-million-tonne allowance, with motorway freight slightly above 2019. The law then required an immediate programme from the responsible ministry.

## Passenger-car toll

### Design of the infrastructure charge

The passenger-car toll, formally an infrastructure use charge (*Infrastrukturabgabe*), was agreed on 27 November 2013 by the Christian Democratic Union, the Christian Social Union and the Social Democratic Party. Holders of cars not registered in Germany were to pay a vignette toward the motorways, provided no holder in Germany paid more than before and the scheme complied with European Union law.

The *Infrastrukturabgabengesetz*, executed on 8 June 2015 under transport minister Alexander Dobrindt, charged passenger vehicles for federal roads. Revenue went to road infrastructure, and the rate depended on cylinder capacity, engine type and emissions. Owners of German-registered vehicles paid an annual vignette of at most €130. Vehicles registered abroad paid for motorway use: €2.50 to €25 for ten days, €7 to €50 for two months, and at most €130 for a year. A parallel tax act cut motor-vehicle tax for German holders by at least that charge, once collection began.

In June 2015 the [European Commission](/organizations/european-commission) opened infringement proceedings over nationality discrimination and the transport standstill in the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. Dobrindt postponed collection but kept preparing contracts. After a December 2016 compromise, amending laws were executed on 18 May and 6 June 2017; on 17 May 2017 the Commission closed the case against its legal service's advice.

### Operator contracts

Separate contracts covered collection and automatic control. Termination for "regulatory-policy" reasons, including a court ruling, still left compensation, later measured by enterprise value less costs saved, and disputes went to arbitration. The 2018 budget set €2.080 billion for 2020–2032, for a 2020 start and a twelve-year term.

The only final collection bid, on 17 October 2018, from Kapsch TrafficCom and autoTicket GmbH, was about €3.077 billion, more than €1 billion over the ceiling. A revised offer of 13 December 2018, about €1.975 billion over twelve years, plus a control contract of about €103 million, fitted the appropriation. On 30 December 2018 the collection contract was notarised with autoTicket and its shareholders, Kapsch and CTS Eventim. The compensation clause was not narrowed.

On 29 November 2018 Scheuer and state secretary Gerhard Schulz met Georg Kapsch and Eventim's Klaus-Peter Schulenberg. The companies later said Schulenberg offered to delay signature until the Court of Justice ruled. Scheuer and Schulz told a parliamentary inquiry they recalled no such offer, and Scheuer said advice had rated the chance of losing as low.

### Judgment of the Court of Justice

Austria brought Case C-591/17 after the Commission gave no opinion in time. The Netherlands supported Austria and Denmark supported Germany. The Grand Chamber heard the case in Luxembourg on 11 December 2018. Advocate General Nils Wahl, on 6 February 2019, did not recommend upholding the action.

On 18 June 2019 the Court of Justice of the European Union held that the charge, combined with tax relief for owners of German-registered vehicles, was indirect discrimination on grounds of nationality and breached the free movement of goods and the freedom to provide services (Articles 18, 34, 56 and 92 of the Treaty). The relief cancelled the charge for those owners, so the burden fell in practice only on vehicles registered elsewhere. Germany had not shown that the relief matched their contribution to road costs, German owners could not buy a shorter vignette, and no environmental justification was made out. Charging all users was allowed, but not in this form. Checks, fines and related enforcement rules were not themselves discriminatory.

Scheuer decided the same day that the scheme the Bundestag had passed could not continue unless domestic holders paid more. On 19 June 2019 both contracts were terminated for alleged poor performance and for policy reasons, with further notices on 25 June and 29 August 2019.

### Inquiry, compensation and the criminal case

The Bundestag's second committee of inquiry of the 19th electoral period reported on 10 June 2021 (printed paper 19/30500), handing the text to President Wolfgang Schäuble. The majority found no obvious procurement-law breach, called signing before the judgment "defensible", and said a later signature would also have been lawful, but that the risk of losing outright, and the cost of a policy-based termination, should have weighed more. Whether a delay had been offered "could not be clarified", and no lie by the ministry or Scheuer had been credibly proved. The Free Democratic Party, Die Linke and Alliance 90/The Greens said in a joint minority opinion that the early signature had accepted the greatest possible loss and that Scheuer and Schulz had tried to mislead Parliament about the offer. [Alternative for Germany](/organizations/alternative-for-germany) called the project a political fiasco.

The operators had sought about €560 million. A partial arbitral award of 22 March 2022 upheld autoTicket's claims in principle; an award by consent of 6 July 2023 fixed Germany's payment at €243 million and closed every claim under the collection contract. The sum was paid. A further settlement of about €27 million with Kapsch subsidiary MTS Maut & Telematik Services, on the control side, was confirmed by the ministry in September 2025. Reporting in September 2026 described it as paid, putting compensation at about €270 million.

Successor Volker Wissing commissioned an opinion, delivered on 15 December 2023 by Müller-Wrede, which found only slight prospects of recovering the €243 million from Scheuer. There was no clear basis in the Federal Ministers Act or official-liability law. The least weak theory was a duty under the public-law relationship of office, probably only for intent or gross negligence, in signing on 30 December 2018 without a fresh assessment of the court risk or a tighter exit clause. The termination was not treated as blameworthy, and the Federation would bear the burden of proof. Suing was estimated to risk about €3.6 million. On 28 December 2023 the ministry decided not to sue, while stating that Scheuer's political responsibility was undisputed.

The Berlin prosecution opened an investigation in May 2022 and on 20 August 2025 indicted Scheuer and Schulz at the Landgericht Berlin for false unsworn testimony under section 153 of the Criminal Code, which section 162 extends to committees of inquiry (three months to five years). Prosecutors allege that, asked between 1 October 2020 and 28 January 2021 whether the operators had offered on 29 November 2018 to sign only after the ruling, both said they could not remember, knowingly and against their actual memory. Both deny it. They are presumed innocent. The court admitted the indictment, and the trial opened on 21 September 2026. Scheuer said he had answered as he remembered and still recalled no postponement offer. Twelve days were planned, with a possible judgment on 25 November 2026; a short sentence can be converted to a fine.

On 12 October 2026 Kapsch and Schulenberg testified before the chamber hearing the case, reported as the 36th criminal chamber under Judge Pit Becker. Kapsch said Schulenberg had unexpectedly suggested waiting for the Court and that Scheuer refused because opinions on file treated the toll as lawful. Schulenberg said the offer was serious — the bids were about €1 billion apart — and was dropped at once. On 14 October, defence counsel Daniel Krause pressed him on whether the offer clearly covered both award and signature. Schulenberg said that, as he remembered it, it had been clear, but that he could not recall the words, and he denied saying he would "finish" Scheuer. Reporting noted that even a proved offer would not itself prove a knowing lie, and that doubt about memory would favour the defendants. By mid-October 2026 witnesses were still being heard, and no judgment had been given.

## Reception and further disputes

### Standing in opinion polls

In the October 2020 ARD-Deutschlandtrend, Infratest dimap telephoned 1,001 eligible voters on 28 and 29 September and asked how satisfied they were with each politician's work. Twelve percent were very or somewhat satisfied with Scheuer and 63 percent less or not at all; 75 percent said they could judge him. On that list his positive share was tied for the lowest, and his negative share was the highest.

*Der Spiegel*'s cabinet monitor, run with the online pollster Civey, scored satisfaction with ministers from to . The 7 July 2020 reading gave Scheuer , which Spiegel called the worst result, with 69 percent "very dissatisfied," and linked it to the toll debacle. On 31 December 2020 the score was , last in the cabinet and seven points below December 2019. Spiegel again cited the toll and grouped him with [Franziska Giffey](/people/franziska-giffey) and [Julia Klöckner](/people/julia-klockner) among the year's decliners.

### Other policy controversies

*Der Spiegel* reported on 20 September 2021 that Bavaria was allocated €2.1 billion for federal trunk roads in 2020, more than any other state, against just under €1.7 billion for North Rhine-Westphalia and about €1 billion for Baden-Württemberg. Over Scheuer's tenure the magazine calculated €6.3 billion for Bavaria, 21 percent of nearly €30 billion, compared with a little over 15 percent under the Königsteiner Schlüssel. The ministry said the impression that individual states had been preferred in investment decisions was false. Oliver Luksic of the Free Democratic Party said Christian Social Union leadership had oriented the ministry toward Bavaria, and Detlef Müller of the Social Democratic Party called the pattern brazen cronyism, while Markus Söder praised the money brought to the state. From a ministry answer, Spiegel also reported that half of eight openings Scheuer attended in the 2021 election year were in Bavaria.

The Bundesrechnungshof, in remarks of 30 November 2021, reviewed a separate use of funds from 2007 to 2020, a period that includes Scheuer's tenure and those of his predecessors. Of €286 million budgeted for private rail sidings, €110 million was spent on them; €115 million went to federal trunk roads and €9 million to airport stakes. The office said the transfers were legal but ran against shifting freight to rail and against the climate programme that had included the subsidy since 2014, and that demand had been overstated contrary to the rules of necessity and due date.

Scheuer long opposed hardware retrofits for older diesel cars, calling them a waste of money and environmentally questionable on technical, legal and financial grounds, including higher fuel use. In September 2018, with urban driving bans in prospect, he said the ministry would still look at technical ways to clean up existing vehicles. By March 2019 it had published technical requirements. Scheuer said the retrofit industry then had to supply compliant systems, which the motor-transport authority would approve quickly. The industry association stayed skeptical, and Volkswagen said the long-term effects were unknown.

In May 2023 Scheuer was criticised for meeting Florida governor [Ron DeSantis](/people/ron-desantis) with CSU colleagues Dorothee Bär and [Florian Hahn](/people/florian-hahn). Posting on 5 May, he wrote that the governor's strategic and foreign-policy assessments underlined transatlantic cooperation. SPD parliamentary manager Katja Mast said DeSantis stood for a new-right culture war, and Sven Lehmann, the federal queer commissioner from Alliance 90/The Greens, said that if those politics were a CSU model, "then good night." Hahn said DeSantis was a possible presidential candidate and that the delegation had insisted Ukraine be supported. Tagesschau noted that Florida had recently extended, with few exceptions, restrictions on classroom instruction about sexual orientation or gender identity through the twelfth grade.

## Resignation and later activities

### Departure from parliament and the city council

Scheuer had chaired the Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU) in Lower Bavaria since February 2016, and early in 2023 he said he would not seek the post again. At the district conference in Dingolfing on 8 July 2023 he stepped down after more than seven years, and delegates elected Christian Bernreiter, Bavaria's minister for construction and transport, unopposed with about 98 percent of the vote.

On 28 January 2024, at the CSU New Year reception in Passau, he said he would not stand in the 2025 federal election. He told the *Passauer Neue Presse* that more than 20 years in office left him grateful, that the decision had long been settled, and that he would not set out further plans. He had been in the Bundestag since 2002 for the Passau constituency; inside the Lower Bavaria CSU there had been repeated doubts about another candidacy.

On 27 March 2024 he gave up his seat in the 20th Bundestag and left at the end of 1 April 2024. That day he said that after 1 April he was laying down the mandate; the Bundestag confirmed to the Deutsche Presse-Agentur that the step took effect on 1 April and was not an April Fool's joke. Bavaria's state returning officer recorded an uncompensated overhang seat for the CSU under section 6(6), sentence 4, of the Federal Elections Act (*Bundeswahlgesetz*) and appointed no list successor, so the party had one fewer member for the rest of the term.

He had sat on the Passau city council since 2002. After he left the Bundestag the local CSU nominated him, following a colleague's withdrawal, as a leading auditor, which he described as deputy chair of the audit committee. At the meeting on 7 October 2024, Green councillor Karl Synek and non-attached councillor Holm Putzke, a professor at the University of Passau and a CSU member outside the group, criticised the choice by citing the failed car toll and the compensation the federal government had paid. On 8 October Scheuer wrote on Instagram, under "Es reicht!" ("Enough!"), that the meeting made further service impossible, and announced his resignation. A criminal case was still pending: in September 2026 Berlin prosecutors were pursuing a charge of deliberate false testimony to the toll inquiry, which he denied.

### Business and association roles

The Bundestag register of outside activities listed him, from 5 July 2023, on the advisory board "Mosolf 2030" of MOSOLF SE & Co. KG in Kirchheim unter Teck, a logistics firm for the motor industry, and as chair of the board of Asienbrücke e.V. (Euro-Asian-Initiative) in Berlin. On 12 February 2024, before a notary in Passau and while still a member of parliament, he founded two Berlin companies, *Die Welt* reported from the commercial register. He held 80 percent of Positanis Holding GmbH and his wife, Julia Scheuer, 20 percent; its objects were holding participations and managing assets. Tancredis GmbH, owned by the holding, was to provide corporate consulting, and he was sole managing director of both. In April 2024 *Der Spiegel* called him president of Asienbrücke and wrote that he travelled in that role to promote German companies, including in India.

## Personal life

Scheuer has given his religion to the Bundestag as Roman Catholic. In the archived biographies for the 18th, 19th and 20th electoral periods, drawn from members’ own information, he is listed as born on 26 September 1974 in Passau and *römisch-katholisch*.

Reported family events are centred on Passau, in Lower Bavaria. In May 2018 the *Abendzeitung München* wrote that, as transport minister, he spent much of his time in Berlin, while his then wife lived with their daughter in Passau.

A first marriage ended in divorce in 2011; published accounts have not named that wife. The *Abendzeitung* wrote that a year later, at the 2012 Starkbieranstich of the Innstadt brewery in Passau, he appeared with the television journalist Sabine Reisp, a DonauTV moderator, and said that for him private matters stayed private. They had met in 2011, while he was a parliamentary state secretary. The paper called the wedding that followed his second marriage; she was thereafter known as Sabine Scheuer, and their daughter was born in Passau in 2013. On 8 May 2018, about five years after the wedding, *Der Spiegel* reported that they were separating. Their lawyer, Markus Schuhmann, confirmed the separation to *Bild*; the daughter was then four. Later accounts date that marriage from 2013 to 2018.

He later married the political scientist Julia Reuss. In February 2021 *Business Insider* reported that she had been his partner for just under two years, held a doctorate in political science, and was leaving her post as head of office to Dorothee Bär, minister of state for digital affairs, to become public-policy director for Central Europe at Facebook. On 18 August 2021 the Deutsche Presse-Agentur, carried by *Die Welt*, reported that Scheuer had told *Bunte*, “Ja, wir haben geheiratet” (“Yes, we got married”). The celebration had been held the previous Saturday, 14 August, at a hut in the Berchtesgaden Alps in Bavaria, after a postponement from 2020 because of the [COVID-19 pandemic](/drivers/covid-19-pandemic). It was his third marriage and, *t-online* reported, her second.

On 25 November 2023 the *Passauer Neue Presse* reported his confirmation to Mediengruppe Bayern, “Wir sind Eltern geworden” (“We have become parents”). Their daughter Cecilia was born in the night of 23–24 November at Klinikum Passau; *Bild*, quoting him, gave the time as 00:22 and reported that mother and child were well. The *Passauer Neue Presse* called her his second child, beside a ten-year-old daughter from the second marriage, and Reuss’s first. *Bild* identified Reuss by then as director for Central Europe at Meta Platforms, formerly Facebook.

## Dated facts

_No published facts on this page yet._

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/people/andreas-scheuer