The introduction of a nationwide 49-euro ticket is still up in the air because the federal and state governments cannot agree on how the expected additional costs will be shared. Federal Transport Minister Wissing is now urging people to hurry, even if he still doesn't promise any money.
Federal Transport Minister Volker Wissing is promoting the start of the planned Germany-wide local transport ticket, despite open financial questions. "Nobody knows today exactly what the introduction of the 49-euro ticket will cost next year," said the FDP politician to the "Welt am Sonntag". We won't know until 2024. "Then we want to talk about the ticket and further developments with the countries anyway."
That's why "everyone should get to work" now and quickly implement a decision by the Prime Ministers' Conference to introduce tickets. In doing so, the minister opposed demands from the federal states that the federal government should already agree to assume half of any additional costs.
The background is a new financial dispute over the planned nationwide ticket for buses and trains in local transport with an introductory price of 49 euros per month. It should come in the new year and build on the popular 9-euro tickets from the summer.
The official estimate is currently three billion euros for the introduction of the digital regional transport ticket with nationwide validity. The federal and state governments want to share these three billion. But states and transport associations estimate that the actual costs are over four billion euros. At the end of November, the transport ministers of the federal states declared that they expected the federal government to split possible additional costs equally between the federal and state governments and to bear them jointly.
The launch of the nationwide 49-euro ticket for local public transport, which should officially be called Deutschlandticket, was originally scheduled for January 1st. At the conference of transport ministers at the end of November, however, April 1st was targeted as the start date.
The federal government also wants to increase its regular funds, which the federal states use to order services from transport providers. Wissing emphasized: "Of course we want the Deutschlandticket to be a great success for everyone, especially for the citizens. The federal government will therefore support the federal states where it can."
