# Steffen Bilger

# Steffen Bilger

Steffen Bilger (born 16 February 1979 in Schongau) is a German lawyer and politician of the [Christian Democratic Union](/organizations/christian-democratic-union-of-germany) (CDU). He has been a directly elected member of the Bundestag for Ludwigsburg since 2009. Since 29 July 2026 he has been Federal Minister of Transport in the cabinet of Chancellor [Friedrich Merz](/people/friedrich-merz), succeeding fellow CDU politician Patrick Schnieder.

He was born in Upper Bavaria and grew up in Baden-Württemberg. He took his Abitur in Backnang in 1998, performed civilian service, and studied law at the University of Tübingen, passing the first state examination in 2004. After a traineeship at the Landgericht Stuttgart he passed the second state examination in 2006 and worked until 2009 as a lawyer in the strategy department of MVV Energiedienstleistungen GmbH in Mannheim. A CDU member since 1996, he has chaired the party's Nordwürttemberg district association since 2011.

From 2009 to 2018 Bilger sat on the Bundestag committee for transport and digital infrastructure. From March 2018 to December 2021 he was parliamentary state secretary to Transport Minister [Andreas Scheuer](/people/andreas-scheuer) of the [Christian Social Union](/organizations/christian-social-union-in-bavaria), and coordinator of the federal government for freight transport and logistics. He was a deputy chair of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group from December 2021 until 2025 and, from May 2025 until he joined the cabinet, its first parliamentary secretary. In the 2025 federal election he held Ludwigsburg with 65,326 first votes, 36.5 percent.

The transport appointment was part of a July 2026 reshuffle that followed the resignation of Jens Spahn as chair of the CDU/CSU group. Merz had told Schnieder that he intended to dismiss him; Fritz Güntzler was lined up as successor and then withdrew, and Schnieder asked Merz and Federal President [Frank-Walter Steinmeier](/people/frank-walter-steinmeier) to remove him so as to end what Schnieder called an unworthy situation that was blocking work, including decisions on Deutsche Bahn. Government spokesman Stefan Kornelius said Merz would nominate Bilger. On 29 July Steinmeier dismissed Schnieder and appointed Bilger, [Nina Warken](/people/nina-warken) as head of the Federal Chancellery and [Carsten Linnemann](/people/carsten-linnemann) as minister of health; the oath before the Bundestag was set for the first sitting after the summer recess.

Opposition speakers linked the new minister to the passenger-car toll of the Scheuer years, which the [Court of Justice of the European Union](/organizations/justice-cjeu) stopped in 2019 at a reported cost to the federal budget of at least €243 million. Bilger had defended the project in the Bundestag as compatible with European Union law, while stating in 2023 that he had not been involved in the contract talks with the operator consortium. Merz said he wanted Bilger to turn the investment programme drawn from the special fund for infrastructure and climate protection into projects on the ground. The Bundestag biography, compiled from the member's own disclosures, records that he is Protestant, married and the father of three children.

## Early life and education

### Childhood and family

Steffen Rudi Bilger was born on 16 February 1979 in Schongau, in Upper Bavaria, Bavaria, and grew up in Backnang, Baden-Württemberg. The Munzinger biographical archive describes him as the son of a social deacon and an educator, and records that Christian and social values were important in the household. Bilger has written that his father trained at the Karlshöhe in Ludwigsburg and worked as a social deacon with homeless people, and that his mother was an educator in a Protestant kindergarten.

He is Protestant. In an August 2026 profile, the *Münchner Merkur* described him as shaped by Württemberg Pietism. The paper reported his account that he came to politics through church youth work and the Stadtjugendring, and that he was active in Entschieden für Christus (EC), a youth association within the pietist Protestant community movement. In 1996, aged 17 and still a pupil in Backnang, he joined the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). When he was later named federal transport minister, the *Backnanger Kreiszeitung* recalled that he had grown up in the town. Gerhard Ketterer, a long-serving CDU city councillor and holder of the Bürgermedaille, told the paper he was unsurprised, because those who had known Bilger as a young man had already regarded him as a considerable political talent.

### Schooling, civilian service and legal training

In 1998 Bilger passed the Abitur at the Max-Born-Gymnasium in Backnang, the school-leaving certificate that qualifies its holder for university. The school states that on 1 January 1971 the former Gymnasium Backnang was officially renamed after the physicist and Nobel laureate Max Born.

From 1998 to 1999 he performed Zivildienst, Germany’s civilian alternative to compulsory military service, with the Erlacher Höhe at its branch Haus Friedrichstraße in Backnang. The Erlacher Höhe describes that house as a diaconal admission shelter for homeless adult men; Munzinger summarises the posting as service at a contact point for homeless people.

He then studied law at the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen from 1999 to 2004 and passed the first state examination in law in 2004. From 2004 to 2006 he completed the Rechtsreferendariat, the preparatory legal traineeship, at the Landgericht Stuttgart, the regional court in Stuttgart, and passed the second state examination in 2006.

Under section 5 of the German Judiciary Act (*Deutsches Richtergesetz*), the qualification for judicial office (*Befähigung zum Richteramt*) is acquired by completing university legal studies with a first examination and a subsequent preparatory service ending in a second state examination. The Bundestag lists Bilger as a *Volljurist*, the designation for someone who holds that qualification, and notes that its biographical entries rest on members’ own statements. He has written that, once the traineeship was finished, he chose a path into business.

## Professional career before parliament

### MVV Energie and private practice

From 2006 to 2009 Bilger worked as a lawyer (*Rechtsanwalt*) in the strategy department of MVV Energiedienstleistungen GmbH in Mannheim. The Federal Ministry for Transport and the Federal Government’s cabinet biography both place that employment in the same years and describe him as a lawyer at the company. In the disclosures published by the Bundestag under its rules of conduct, his professional activity before membership is entered as three items: MVV Energiedienstleistungen GmbH, Mannheim; lawyer; and lawyer, Stuttgart. The published biography notes that these biographical details rest on members’ own statements, and it lists his profession as *Volljurist*, a fully qualified lawyer. The same pre-membership entries, rather than a current sideline, appear on the transparency site Abgeordnetenwatch.

In the MVV Energie group’s annual report for 2008/09, covering part of his time there, MVV Energiedienstleistungen GmbH is shown as a wholly owned subsidiary of the listed Mannheim utility MVV Energie AG, set beside the group’s environmental business. The report states that the subsidiary’s majority holdings were in contracting, energy-efficiency consulting, industrial parks and consulting.

He also went into private practice. On his website he writes that in 2007, alongside the company job, he and two colleagues founded a law firm. Commercial-register data compiled by North Data record the partnership Paliakoudis Bilger Germalidis – Rechtsanwälte – Partnerschaft, with its seat in Stuttgart and the number PR 720090 at the Amtsgericht Stuttgart, as registered on 27 September 2007 for the joint practice of law, with three partners. Bilger and Konstantinos Paliakoudis are recorded as partners from that date until 21 February 2019. The registered name changed on 10 January 2014 to Paliakoudis Bilger & Partner – Rechtsanwälte – Partnerschaft and on 26 March 2014 to Paliakoudis Bilger – Rechtsanwälte – Partnerschaft; the February 2019 entry records Bilger’s departure and the termination of the partnership. In a reply on Abgeordnetenwatch dated 8 March 2010, he wrote that he was still a partner in the firm he had co-founded in 2007 and that he then did the work only to a minimal extent.

A page on the firm’s website, dated 30 January 2011 and still headed with the three-name partnership, said the practice acted for companies in sectors including transport, that it represented EnBW as contract counsel on the basis of work in energy law, and that its lawyers lectured in traffic law, including for the driving-instructors’ association of Baden-Württemberg. Bilger’s own chronology states that he was active as a lawyer from 2007 to 2019 and that his admission to the bar has been dormant since March 2018.

## Party career

### Junge Union

Bilger joined the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its youth organization, the Junge Union, in 1996. In 1998 he became state chairman of the Schüler Union in Baden-Württemberg, a post his own chronology dates to 1998–1999, and federal managing director of the Schüler Union Deutschlands, which lists him in that national office from 1998 to 2000. From 2002 to 2007 he chaired the Junge Union’s Nordwürttemberg district association.

At the Junge Union state congress in Tuttlingen in November 2006, the then 27-year-old from Backnang was elected state chairman with 85 percent of the delegates. Delegates re-elected him at the end of April 2008 in Remchingen with 94.4 percent; the state organization’s magazine put membership at more than 11,000. At the congress in Asperg on 11 July 2009 his share fell to 81 percent—145 votes in favour and 33 against—after he had sharply criticized the grand coalition in Berlin. He was then the CDU’s direct candidate for the Bundestag in Ludwigsburg. On 18 September 2010, at the congress in Ehingen, he received 171 of 185 votes and called on the organization to narrow the CDU’s polling deficit before the state election of 27 March 2011.

His five years as state chairman ended that autumn. On 12 November 2011, at the congress in Singen, the Mannheim law student Nikolas Löbel was elected to succeed him with 174 of 210 votes.

### CDU district and federal offices

In July 2011 Bilger, then a Bundestag member, announced at a Junge Union district meeting in Böblingen that he would seek the chair of the CDU Bezirksverband Nordwürttemberg. The association covers the administrative region of Stuttgart and is one of four CDU districts in Baden-Württemberg. He stood against the Göppingen Landtag member Dietrich Birk to succeed Wolfgang Reinhart; the congress was then set for 24 September. The ballot was held on 1 October 2011 in Wolpertshausen, in Schwäbisch Hall district. Bilger defeated Birk by 181 votes to 108, and the office carried an automatic seat on the presidium of the state CDU. He told the Deutsche Presse-Agentur that, after the party’s defeat in the March 2011 state election, members appeared to want “new faces,” and that he had not expected so clear a margin.

In 2015 the association reported about 21,000 members, and reporting at the time noted that the honorary district chairs have traditionally carried considerable weight in the southwestern CDU. Its own site later described more than 17,000 members in twelve county associations. Bilger was confirmed at successive congresses by large margins. On 31 October 2015 in Aalen he received 90.55 percent, with Inge Gräßle and Dietrich Birk re-elected as deputies. On 19 October 2019 he was returned with 92.5 percent, alongside deputies Birk, Arnulf von Eyb and Susanne Wetterich, at a meeting centred on vocational education. The 54th district congress re-elected him on 7 May 2022 with 94.7 percent of the votes cast. On 20 June 2026, in Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt, he received 98.4 percent.

At federal level he sat on the CDU Bundesvorstand as one of 26 assessors (*Beisitzer*). In the postal ballot of 31 January 2022, which recorded the elections of the 34th party congress, 784 of 870 valid ballots were cast for him, 90.11 percent. The 36th congress, in Berlin in May 2024, re-elected him with 736 votes, 76.75 percent. He was not among the 26 assessors chosen when the board was renewed at the 38th congress in Stuttgart on 20 February 2026. The non-partisan Europa-Union Deutschland also lists him in its parliamentary group in the 21st Bundestag.

## Member of the Bundestag

### Elections in Ludwigsburg

Steffen Bilger has sat in the Bundestag for constituency 265, Ludwigsburg, since 2009, winning the direct mandate for the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) at every federal election through 23 February 2025. For 2025 the Federal Returning Officer defined the seat as 16 municipalities in Baden-Württemberg: from Landkreis Ludwigsburg, the city of Ludwigsburg with Asperg, Ditzingen, Eberdingen, Gerlingen, Hemmingen, Korntal-Münchingen, Kornwestheim, Markgröningen, Möglingen, Oberriexingen, Remseck am Neckar, Schwieberdingen, Sersheim and Vaihingen an der Enz, plus Weissach in Landkreis Böblingen. The district's remaining municipalities are in constituency 266, Neckar-Zaber. On 31 December 2023 the area covered 361.5 square kilometres and had 323,300 inhabitants (894.4 per square kilometre), in the Stuttgart region.

*Map of constituency 265 Ludwigsburg for the 2017 Bundestag election, credited to the Federal Statistical Office and the Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy.*

In 2009 the CDU took 61,328 first votes there, 39.9 percent of valid first votes, on a turnout of 75.5 percent of 206,805 eligible voters. That count is the State Statistical Office's table for constituency 265 on the 2013 boundaries; electorate and turnout match the Federal Returning Officer's 2009 results volume, and the officer's 2013 comparison is a gain of 10.5 points on 2009. Final results then give the CDU 50.4 percent in 2013 (80,935 votes; turnout 77.5 percent), 38.3 percent in 2017 (66,430 votes; turnout 80.4 percent) and 29.5 percent in 2021 (50,297 votes; turnout 79.8 percent). In 2021 [the Greens](/organizations/the-greens), on 20.3 percent, were next on the first ballot. Abgeordnetenwatch records that Bilger was also fourth on the CDU state list in 2021, with the mandate itself the constituency seat.

In 2025 he was not on the CDU state list. The list admitted by the Baden-Württemberg returning officer on 3 February 2025 has 59 names, from Thorsten Frei to Elvira Corinna Große, and does not include him; Abgeordnetenwatch records only a Ludwigsburg constituency candidacy. He won with 65,326 first votes, 36.5 percent, 7.0 points above 2021. The Returning Officer names Martin Alexander Hess of [the Alternative](/organizations/the-alternative) for Germany as runner-up, with 30,176 votes (16.9 percent). Alliance 90/The Greens received 28,680 first votes (16.0 percent) and the [Social Democratic Party of Germany](/organizations/social-democratic-party-of-germany) 27,111 (15.2 percent); the *Stuttgarter Zeitung* named [Sandra Detzer](/people/sandra-detzer) and [Macit Karaahmetoğlu](/people/macit-karaahmetoglu) as those parties' constituency candidates. [Die Linke](/organizations/die-linke) took 6.2 percent and the Free Democratic Party 5.1 percent. Turnout was 84.7 percent (179,881 voters of 212,465 eligible). Second votes went 32.1 percent to the CDU, 16.9 percent to the AfD, 15.1 percent to the SPD and 14.9 percent to the Greens. The state statistical office lists Bilger as the elected constituency member, and Hess, Detzer and Karaahmetoğlu among those elected from state lists.

### Committees and other parliamentary roles

The Bundestag biography, which the parliament says rests on members' own information, records Bilger as chair of the Junge Gruppe in the CDU/CSU Bundestag group from 2014 to February 2018. For the 18th electoral period it lists full membership of the Committee on Transport and Digital Infrastructure and of the Joint Committee, and the chair of the board of trustees of the Federal Agency for Civic Education. It also lists the Mediation Committee of the Bundestag and the Bundesrat from 2017 to March 2018; Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure from March 2018 to December 2021; a deputy chair of the CDU/CSU group from December 2021; First Parliamentary Secretary of the group from May 2025 to July 2026; and Federal Minister of Transport from July 2026. Bayerischer Rundfunk reported that he had chaired the Bundestag's parliamentary circle on electromobility and had been rapporteur for alternative drivetrains.

In the 21st Bundestag he is listed as an ordinary member of the Wahlausschuss, the 12-member committee that proposes the Federal [Constitutional Court](/organizations/constitutional-court) judges elected by the plenary. The court has 16 judges, half chosen by the Bundestag and half by the Bundesrat.

Posts published under the Bundestag's disclosure rules, as distinct from the narrative biography, include unpaid membership of the board of trustees of Ludwigsburger Schlossfestspiele gGmbH; unpaid membership, until 1 May 2025, of the "Politik & Public Affairs" advisory board at Quadriga Hochschule Berlin; and unpaid membership of the KfW administrative board from 29 July 2026. KfW lists him there as Federal Minister of Transport. The same disclosures record the board of the Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt until 20 May 2026, at a stated 1,100 euros gross a month until 31 December 2025 and 1,130 euros from 1 January 2026, plus unpaid seats at the Schneller Stiftung and the Stiftung Theaterhaus Stuttgart.

## Parliamentary State Secretary

### Appointment under Andreas Scheuer

In March 2018, when [Angela Merkel](/people/angela-merkel)'s fourth cabinet took office as a coalition of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the Christian Social Union (CSU) and the Social Democratic Party, Andreas Scheuer (CSU) became federal minister for transport and digital infrastructure. He kept Enak Ferlemann (CDU), parliamentary state secretary since 2009, and newly appointed Steffen Bilger; the ministry went from three parliamentary state secretaries to two. Bilger's Bundestag biography dates the office from March 2018 to December 2021.

Parliamentary state secretaries support the minister and are, as a rule, members of the Bundestag. They may stand in for the minister in debates and question time, in committee, in the Bundesrat and in cabinet meetings; smaller ministries usually have two. At the Federal Ministry for Transport, Scheuer also installed two permanent state secretaries, Gerhard Schulz, previously head of the policy department, and Guido Beermann, brought from the health ministry, in place of Michael Odenwald and Rainer Bomba. In September 2018 Bilger described his own subjects as roads, cars, alternative drivetrains, aviation and digitalization, together with freight and logistics. Reporting at the time gave Ferlemann the budget, railways, shipping, local public transport and transport infrastructure, and assigned Bilger the southern Länder plus Saxony and Thuringia.

On 8 December 2021 the Bundestag was told that [Olaf Scholz](/people/mig-olaf-scholz)'s cabinet had been appointed and that [Volker Wissing](/people/volker-wissing) of the Free Democratic Party was minister for digital affairs and transport, with Daniela Kluckert, Oliver Luksic and [Michael Theurer](/people/michael-theurer), all of the FDP, as the ministry's parliamentary state secretaries.

### Freight, logistics and the ministry

In April 2018 the cabinet confirmed Bilger as coordinator for freight transport and logistics and Ferlemann as commissioner for rail. Bilger said he would be the government's contact for logistics, modernize conditions for the sector with industry through an innovation programme, "Logistik 2030", and treat digitalization as central, while also cutting freight emissions and supporting a shift of goods onto rail and inland waterways. Ferlemann's rail brief included a pact with industry aimed at doubling passenger numbers by 2030 and carrying more freight by rail.

At the ministry's eighth national conference on freight and logistics in Frankfurt, Bilger set out fields for that programme, including digital infrastructure, alternative drivetrains, lorry parking and lower-emission last-mile delivery, and said a commission he chaired would follow the work. A ministry count in April 2018 put the shortfall of regular lorry spaces on and beside the motorways at about 23,000; in January 2020 the ministry set out a five-point parking plan and later offered a subsidy, initially €90 million through 2024, for spaces near motorway junctions. On drivetrains, he said in 2018 that exempting electric trucks from the truck toll, expected to cover a few dozen vehicles, already applied to more than 10,000, and that a subsidy for low-carbon commercial vehicles was drawing strong interest.

During the [COVID-19 pandemic](/drivers/covid-19-pandemic) the government told the Bundestag that Bilger, as freight coordinator, met associations and unions with state secretaries from other departments. It said that suspending the Sunday and holiday driving ban for goods traffic, and temporary flexibility in driving and rest times, had helped avoid significant supply shortages, and that the [European Commission](/organizations/european-commission) refused to extend the driving-time derogation past 31 May 2020. Scheuer and Bilger also patronized #LogistikHilft, a donation-funded industry effort to support logistics staff.

The passenger-car infrastructure charge pursued under Scheuer ran through the same years. In September 2018 Bilger named that charge, with the extension of the truck toll to all federal roads and a rise from 1 January 2019, as a way to sustain infrastructure spending. *[Der Spiegel](/organizations/der-spiegel)* later reported that, shortly before the ruling, he said the government was convinced the scheme complied with EU law because the ministries had examined it. On 18 June 2019 the Court of Justice of the European Union, in a case brought by Austria, held that the vignette plus motor-vehicle-tax relief of at least the same amount for German-registered vehicles was indirect discrimination on grounds of nationality and breached the free movement of goods and the freedom to provide services, because the cost fell in practice on vehicles registered abroad. Kapsch TrafficCom, co-owner of autoTicket GmbH, stated that in July 2023 the federal government paid that company €243 million to end arbitration over termination of the collection contract.

## Leadership in the CDU/CSU Bundestag group

### Deputy chair, 2021–2025

On 13 December 2021 the CDU/CSU group in the Bundestag chose a new executive after the government of Olaf Scholz had been formed, the start of what the group later called its time in opposition. Beside chair [Ralph Brinkhaus](/people/ralph-brinkhaus) and CSU state-group leader [Alexander Dobrindt](/people/alexander-dobrindt), eleven deputy chairs were elected. Steffen Bilger, parliamentary state secretary for transport until that month, was given food and agriculture, the environment, nature conservation, nuclear safety and consumer protection. In the 20th electoral term he sat as a deputy member of the Bundestag committees for food and agriculture and for the environment, nature conservation, nuclear safety and consumer protection. When the group in May 2025 looked back on that term, it described his responsibility as environment and nature conservation, and agriculture and food.

Friedrich Merz replaced Brinkhaus as group chair on 15 February 2022, and Bilger remained a deputy chair through the snap federal election of 23 February 2025. At the constitutive meeting on 25 February the group re-elected Merz with 98 percent and confirmed [Thorsten Frei](/people/thorsten-frei) as First Parliamentary Secretary (*Erster Parlamentarischer Geschäftsführer*) with 99 percent of the votes cast by CDU members. The other members of the executive, Bilger among them, were kept in office only on an acting basis.

### First parliamentary secretary, 2025–2026

On 29 April 2025 the *Tagesspiegel* reported that Jens Spahn, the designated group chair, wanted Bilger to succeed Frei, and presented the choice as Spahn’s first personnel decision. The Deutsche Presse-Agentur confirmed the plan. Frei was expected to become a minister in the Chancellery; the agency described the First Parliamentary Secretary as usually a confidant of the chair who organises parliamentary business, and noted that Bilger and Spahn had known each other since the Junge Union.

On 5 May 2025, the day before the Bundestag was due to elect Merz chancellor, the group elected Spahn chair. Of 197 votes, 178 were in favour, 17 against and two were abstentions; leaving abstentions aside, that was 91.3 percent. Bilger was elected First Parliamentary Secretary with 93.5 percent in the CDU section of the group, which fills that office, in place of Frei, who was moving to the Chancellery as minister for special tasks. On 13 May the remaining deputy chairs were chosen, and the environment and agriculture fields Bilger had held went to other deputies.

Parliamentary secretaries conduct a group’s day-to-day parliamentary and internal business in close step with the chair. They prepare plenary sittings, settle agendas with the other groups and in the Council of Elders (*Ältestenrat*), assemble members for important votes and for a common line, coordinate the group’s bodies, help fill its committee places, and act as intermediaries with the federal government, the Bundesrat, their party and associations. The Council of Elders, which includes the parliamentary secretaries, fixes the dates of sitting weeks, agrees the next week’s plenary agenda and tries to settle disputes between groups. On the timetable it advises rather than decides, and the plenary may depart from its proposals; much of the detail is arranged beforehand in the secretaries’ own round of talks. After the May 2025 vote Bilger said that the narrow majority of the CDU/CSU–SPD coalition would require him to work for unity in the Union group and for collegial cooperation with the SPD group.

On 5 May 2026 the group elected its executive for the remaining three years of the term. Bilger was confirmed with 137 votes in favour, 15 against and one abstention, reported by the group as 90.1 percent. Spahn was confirmed as chair with 86.5 percent, from 167 votes in favour, 26 against and three abstentions. The only change among the leading offices was the justiciar.

Bilger left the secretaryship at the end of July 2026 on appointment as federal minister of transport; the certificate of appointment was handed over on 29 July. On 7 September 2026 the group elected [Catarina dos Santos-Wintz](/people/catarina-dos-santos-wintz), until then one of the other parliamentary secretaries, as First Parliamentary Secretary with 90.9 percent. [Frederik Bouffier](/people/frederik-bouffier) took her former secretary’s post.

## Federal Minister of Transport

### The July 2026 cabinet reshuffle

The resignation of Jens Spahn as chair of the CDU/CSU group in the Bundestag opened a wider reshuffle under Chancellor Friedrich Merz. Spahn had faced heavy criticism after he and his husband used a surrogacy arrangement in the United States, a practice the Union opposes. Merz moved Thorsten Frei from head of the Federal Chancellery to the group chair, a post the parliamentary group filled by electing him on the afternoon of 29 July 2026. Nina Warken, health minister since May 2025, became the first woman to lead the Chancellery, as Federal Minister for Special Affairs, and CDU general secretary Carsten Linnemann was nominated to succeed her at health.

The transport portfolio stalled. On the evening of Thursday 23 July, Merz told Patrick Schnieder, minister since May 2025, that he intended to dismiss him, and offered the job to the finance specialist [Fritz Güntzler](/people/fritz-guntzler), who accepted. Overnight Güntzler withdrew, citing doubts about his expertise in transport policy. Schnieder had already texted some Bundestag members on Friday morning that he was leaving. Because Güntzler had pulled out, Merz did not announce the dismissal that morning in the Chancellery garden, where he presented the other changes, and said only that further moves would follow in due course.

The gap drew sharp criticism inside the Union over Merz's handling of Schnieder. Former Chancellery chief Peter Altmaier wrote that the treatment did justice neither to the person nor to his record, a post shared without comment by Schnieder's brother, [Gordon Schnieder](/people/gordon-schnieder). Christian Bäumler of the Christian Democratic Employees' Association said a federal government should not be run like a feudal kingdom. On Sunday 26 July, while Merz was in Berlin at a commemoration for the victims of an attack, Schnieder said he would ask the chancellor to propose to Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier that he be dismissed, so as to end what he called an unworthy situation that made substantive work impossible, including decisions on Deutsche Bahn that he said could not wait. Government spokesman Stefan Kornelius then said Merz would propose Bilger, the group's first parliamentary secretary, who had sat on the Bundestag transport committee from 2009 to 2018 and been a parliamentary state secretary in the ministry until 2021. Merz telephoned Schnieder and, Kornelius said, regretted that unforeseen circumstances had kept the change from being announced as planned.

### Taking office and early priorities

On 29 July 2026 Steinmeier gave Schnieder his certificate of dismissal and appointed Bilger Federal Minister for Transport (*Bundesminister für Verkehr*). In the same ceremony he appointed Linnemann health minister and Warken head of the Chancellery; Warken received both a dismissal and a new appointment. The federal government lists the post under that transport title; digital affairs in this cabinet sit with a separate Federal Ministry for Digital Affairs and State Modernisation.

Steinmeier called modernising bridges, roads and rail while they stayed in use a "Herculean task", and said Schnieder had started that work knowing it would take time. He also noted that the Basic Law provides for new ministers to take the oath before the Bundestag on assuming office. Merz delayed the swearing-in until the first sitting after the summer recess, citing the cost of recalling parliament; constitutional lawyers called the gap incompatible with the Basic Law. Bundestag President [Julia Klöckner](/people/julia-klockner) administered the oath to Bilger and Linnemann on 8 September 2026.

At the ministry that day, Schnieder handed over the department. Parliamentary state secretaries [Christian Hirte](/people/christian-hirte) and Ulrich Lange remained. Bilger said infrastructure had to serve people—commuters, firms that depend on supply chains, and families travelling by train, car, aircraft or bicycle—and that each mode should be strengthened where it is strong. Merz had said he wanted Bilger to use the investment programme from the special fund so that spending arrived quickly and the new borrowing could be justified.

In an interview with *Bild am Sonntag*, reported on 8 August 2026, Bilger called long-distance punctuality "completely inadequate" and said missed federal targets would have a concrete effect on Deutsche Bahn managers' bonuses. About 60 percent of long-distance trains had been on time in the first half of 2026, against an agreed 70 percent by 2029; he described full punctuality as unrealistic for now. A tighter link between bonuses and performance had already been set out in a strategy paper under Schnieder.

## Transport policy

### Roads, speed limits and charging

Bilger has opposed a general speed limit on German Autobahns since at least his time as parliamentary state secretary. In April 2019 he called such a limit "von gestern", saying it would do little for the climate, that telematics already varied speeds with traffic and weather on about a tenth of the network, and that automated driving would do more for safety. On 30 July 2026, the day after he became minister, he told RTL and ntv he was sure none would come in that legislative period. "Ich halte nichts von einem generellen Tempolimit," he said, claiming Germany had the safest motorways and fewer road deaths than many countries with limits.

The German Environment Agency calls a motorway limit, with lower rural speeds, one of the fastest and cheapest emission cuts, and cites fewer severe crashes, especially at 120 km/h. Its 2024 modelling put the fall in road-transport greenhouse gases at 2.2 to 8.1 percent; 120 km/h on motorways and 80 km/h elsewhere was estimated to save 6.6 million tonnes of CO2-equivalent against 2024. A 2025 Federal Highway Research Institute study of 130 km/h on motorways alone put the saving at about 1.3 to 2.0 million tonnes of CO2 a year.

He has refused a new passenger-car toll. On *Maischberger* in August 2026 he said he had no such mandate, that it was not in the coalition agreement, and that the debate was "ein Stück weit verbrannt" after the scheme of Andreas Scheuer, under whom he served, failed at the Court of Justice of the European Union. Before that judgment he had said the government considered the plan lawful. The lorry toll, which he said raised more than €13 billion a year, continues; the ministry recorded about €13.4 billion in 2025.

For electric cars he has argued for a faster market ramp-up instead. The Federal Network Agency counted 157,762 normal and 56,572 fast public charge points on 1 September 2026 (9.38 gigawatts). The Federal Motor Transport Authority recorded 2,034,260 battery-electric cars on 1 January 2026.

The Deutschlandnetz is to add 9,000 high-power points at more than 1,000 sites, including unstaffed motorway stops, built by private operators. On 28 September 2026 Bilger opened the 100th motorway park, at Räthisgraben on the A81: six points of up to 400 kilowatts, taking charging, debit and credit cards, run by [E.ON](/organizations/e-on) Drive. A €3 billion purchase premium running until 2029 had drawn more than 100,000 applications by October. He said it should then end, because battery cars were "absolut marktfähig", but not be stopped early, and that about 60 public charge points were being added each day.

### Rail, local public transport and the Deutschlandticket

The sums he inherited were fixed in the 2026 budget under Patrick Schnieder. For roads, rail and waterways, from the core budget and the special fund for infrastructure and climate neutrality, the ministry's plan totals about €166.3 billion from 2025 to 2029: about €106.8 billion for rail, €52.0 billion for roads and €7.6 billion for waterways. For 2026 it put transport investment at about €33.7 billion.

His first rail decisions concerned results at Deutsche Bahn, not a new fund. He said corridor renovations already under way — months-long full closures — had not delivered what was hoped, and that missed schedules might have consequences. In October he described a five-year project list for the federation, the Länder and the railway, and a revision of the corridors so that a long closure would be followed by better running. He called 70 percent long-distance punctuality by 2029 realistic beside a rate only a little above half, and said punctuality, digitalisation and repairs should shape managers' variable pay. Schnieder had already proposed linking bonuses to targets; ZDF *frontal* reported that payments already started near 65 percent punctuality. Bilger's line drew support from SPD and Green politicians and from Pro Bahn.

The Deutschlandticket cost €63 a month in 2026 and was to rise to €66.80 on 1 January 2027 on an index set by the states; the federation says it does not set the price. About 14.5 million people held it. The federation has pledged €1.5 billion a year through 2030 against lost fare income, matched by the states. On his nomination, the Allgemeiner Deutscher Fahrrad-Club asked for faster work on cycle networks, road safety and the national cycling plan.

### Cars, drivetrains and European rules

In 2019 he argued for openness across drivetrains, including hydrogen, and for mobility that stayed affordable. As minister he has backed battery cars while opposing one mandated powertrain. On 12 October 2026 he called the European Union rule of zero CO2 from new cars in 2035 "ein großer Fehler" and said the government sought its repeal so Germany could keep building several drivetrains for world markets. A Commission plan to cut fleet CO2 by 90 percent rather than 100 percent was, he said, still too like a ban; he said a majority in the [European People's Party](/organizations/european-people-s-party) favoured 80 percent.

On 16 October Germany and France proposed that cut of 90 percent from 2035 without offsets, so new petrol and diesel cars could still be sold if the fleet average held, with European green steel counting in manufacturers' favour. Germany accepted that purchase subsidies would in principle cover only vehicles built in the EU, the United Kingdom or the rest of the European Economic Area. Chancellor Friedrich Merz called the 2035 ban finished. Council and Parliament had still to agree; in June, France and six other states had opposed any loosening.

## Reception and controversies

### The car-toll contracts

From March 2018 to December 2021 Bilger was parliamentary state secretary under Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer (Christian Social Union). He defended the passenger-car charge, often called an "Ausländermaut" because German owners were to be fully offset through the vehicle tax, and said shortly before the ruling that ministry reviews had found it compatible with EU law.

On 18 June 2019 the Court of Justice of the European Union held, in Austria v Germany (C-591/17), that the vignette plus that relief discriminated indirectly by nationality and restricted trade in goods and services. The cost would have fallen in practice on foreign-registered vehicles. Advocate General Nils Wahl had on 6 February 2019 urged that Austria's action be dismissed; the Court did not follow him.

Operator contracts were then ended. The intended operators, including the Kapsch group, had sought about 560 million euros. Settlements set 243 million euros in 2023 and about 27 million euros in 2025 for Kapsch subsidiary MTS, about 270 million euros altogether. Berlin prosecutors charged Scheuer, not Bilger, with unsworn false testimony before the Bundestag toll inquiry.

Bilger wrote on Abgeordnetenwatch in August 2023 that he had not joined the operator talks. He said he had favoured a toll for every user, not the "foreigners' toll" of the 2013 coalition agreement, after an understanding with the European Commission. He wrote that defeat had not been obvious, and that signing before the judgment was in hindsight a mistake.

In July 2026 [Jorrit Bosch](/people/jorrit-bosch) of Die Linke told ARD Bilger stood "like no one else for the failures of recent years", citing a loss of at least 243 million euros. [Matthias Gastel](/people/matthias-gastel) of Alliance 90/The Greens said he was not a man for "courageous decisions and clear priorities". In August Bilger told Maischberger he had no remit for a new car toll, it was outside the coalition agreement, and the debate was "to some extent burned".

### Environmental litigation and industry ties

On 27 February 2018 the Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig largely rejected appeals on the air plans for Düsseldorf and Stuttgart (7 C 26.16 and 7 C 30.17). The annual nitrogen dioxide limit of 40 micrograms per cubic metre had to be met as soon as possible. Deutsche Umwelthilfe (DUH) had sued; proportionate diesel bans stayed legally open.

Bilger, CDU district chair in Nordwürttemberg and member for Ludwigsburg, told Handelsblatt that November the DUH's course was "völlig daneben" ("completely out of line"). He said Ludwigsburg, an electric-mobility model he called Germany's most sustainable city, was still being sued, and that the district would seek to revoke the DUH's charitable status. At Hamburg in December 2018 the CDU questioned that status. A Nordwürttemberg text asked for a block on money not yet firmly promised and for no further federal funds for the DUH. Ending charitable status and the right of collective action did not pass.

The DUH said tax offices, not parties, decide charitable status, citing an August 2018 exemption. It called honorary chair Matthias Wissmann the industry's chief lobbyist, linked Bilger and deputy Dietrich Birk of the VDMA to manufacturers, and said SPD and Green support had helped. Spiegel noted tens of thousands of Baden-Württemberg jobs depended on the car industry.

Employers there include Mercedes-Benz and Porsche. On 12 August 2026 LobbyControl, writing of closeness to the car lobby, added Bosch and Mahle and recalled Wissmann's years as transport minister and president of the German Association of the Automotive Industry. It noted he would not tell ARD's Monitor in 2018 whether industry money reached his district. Party accounts, it added, do not show gifts by district, though the CDU had long received large sums from the sector. It cited his 2025 criticism of the combustion-engine phase-out.

Dirk Flege of Allianz pro Schiene called him experienced on freight. On 30 July 2026 the Association of German Transport Companies congratulated him and asked for steady funding. The Allgemeiner Deutscher Fahrrad-Club, on 27 July, offered talks and hoped for "new momentum" on cycle networks and the national cycling plan.

## Personal life

### Family and interests

Bilger was born on 16 February 1979 in Schongau. The Bundestag biography, drawn from his own disclosures, lists him as Protestant, married and the father of three children. He grew up in Backnang. A September 2021 profile in the *Ludwigsburger Kreiszeitung* gave Ludwigsburg as his residence and named his wife as Isabell; his own chronology dates the marriage to 2013 and gives her birth name as Siedler. In February 2025 he told the *Stuttgarter Zeitung* that she carried much of the work of a family with three children while he was often in Berlin or at appointments. On 28 July 2026, reporting his move to the transport ministry, the paper headlined his statement that his center of life would remain there.

He has said that he conducts politics consciously as a Protestant Christian shaped by Württemberg Pietism. By his account he came to politics through church youth work and a municipal youth council, and he was active in Entschieden für Christus, part of the Pietist *Gemeinschaft* movement. In 2010 the Evangelischer Gemeinschaftsverband Württemberg, the Apis, gave him its Hoffnungsträgerpreis; the citation called him a Pietist-formed Christian with a wide horizon. In autumn 2025 he accused Protestant and Catholic church leaders of a leftward tilt on migration and climate, citing support by the Evangelical Church in Germany for a speed limit.

The *Kreiszeitung* and the *Stuttgarter Zeitung* have listed travel, tennis, time with his family and support for VfB Stuttgart among his interests. On 4 February 2015 he and Sven Volmering founded a cross-party VfB fan club in the Bundestag, open to members and staff; Bilger became a deputy chair, with [Cem Özdemir](/people/cem-ozdemir) among the other deputies on the board. The Bundestag records an unpaid trusteeship of the Ludwigsburger Schlossfestspiele, the festival at Ludwigsburg Palace, and the festival still lists him. In 2025 he also described a patronage of TEB, a Ludwigsburg self-help association for people with pancreatic disease and their relatives; its website later presented the group as dissolved and in liquidation.

## Dated facts

_No published facts on this page yet._

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/people/steffen-bilger