Trade unions: DGB calls for timely agreement on mobility law

unions
DGB calls for timely agreement on the Mobility Act

The German trade union federation has demanded more speed from the green-black state government in the traffic turnaround in the southwest. Most recently, there had been a dispute in the coalition about a draft for the planned state mobility law by Transport Minister Winfried Hermann (Greens). Mobility is a basic need and at the same time there is an urgent need for climate policy action in the transport sector, said Maren Diebel-Ebers, DGB Vice President of Baden-Württemberg. The DGB is therefore pushing for a timely decision on the Mobility Act.

“An attractive public transport with improved and more reliable clocks is exactly what we need,” said Diebel-Ebers. The dispute within the coalition about this is unfortunately the opposite. The turnaround in traffic is not available for free. Therefore, a more attractive range of buses and trains can only succeed with sufficient public funding. “This must first and foremost be ensured by the country.”

The mobility guarantee planned by Transport Minister Hermann, according to which by 2026 everywhere in Baden-Wuerttemberg At peak times, a bus or train should run at least every half hour, is not funded in the 2023/2024 double budget. It is unclear whether it will be included in the next double budget. Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann (Greens) said at the end of April that the cash situation always had an impact on important projects. “Even good and important things that are in the coalition agreement must be fundable,” said Kretschmann at the time.

In order to advance the mobility guarantee and also implement it in rural areas, the state is relying on call offers. A funding program is intended to accelerate the expansion of this so-called “on-demand traffic”. Cities and counties could each get up to two million euros from the state, that shared Ministry of Transport in Stuttgart with The funding program was already in place last year and has now been extended.

The DGB rejects considerations of a mandatory local transport fee. “Here we would like the Ministry of Transport to have more social sense of proportion,” said Diebel-Ebers. Instead, it is wiser to involve employers more in the financing of public transport.

The CDU parliamentary group informed Transport Minister Hermann in a letter at the beginning of April that the draft mobility law did not represent a basis for further discussion from the point of view of the CDU MPs. After a discussion that followed, the leaders of the CDU and Greens parliamentary groups agreed to intensify the deliberations on the content of the draft.

According to the Greens faction, there has now been a talk between the Greens, the CDU and the Ministry of Transport. “The Ministry of Transport will deal seriously with the criticism expressed and the constructive advice,” said the transport policy spokeswoman for the Green Group, Silke Gericke. The bill is now going through the regular process.

dpa

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