The state subsidizes public transport in the billions every year.

The federal government gives significantly more than the federal states - although the operation of buses and trains is their area of ​​responsibility.

This was the result of a survey by the FAZ, in which almost all federal states took part.

Only three states, Saxony-Anhalt and the two city states of Hamburg and Bremen, were unable or unwilling to provide any information on their share of the financing of local public transport.

Corinna Budras

Business correspondent in Berlin.

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The survey also revealed that countries' own contributions vary greatly.

Some regions, including North Rhine-Westphalia and especially Berlin, invest significantly more in local public transport than the federal government.

Their investments sometimes double the support from the capital.

In other federal states, such as Brandenburg or above all Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the opposite is the case, they only put in a fraction of what the federal government gives.

Especially in the east of the country, buses and trains do not seem to be particularly important.

There, the state governments invest relatively little money in the operation and expansion of the network.

On the part of the states willing to provide information, this added up to around 7 billion euros in 2021, while the federal government transferred a total of around 9.3 billion euros.

This year it will be 9.4 billion euros.

In addition, there is 1.6 billion euros as part of a “rescue package” intended to compensate for losses during the corona pandemic.

The countries add the same amount.

The financing of local public transport is currently the cause of a bitter dispute between the federal and state governments.

The reason for this is the introduction of the 9-euro ticket in two weeks, which is to be decided by the Bundestag and Bundesrat in the next few days.

The federal government has promised to cover the costs for the three-month discount campaign, based on the expected ticket losses, i.e. 2.5 billion euros.

However, this is not enough for the countries.

They argue that inflation has also hit them hard in the past few months: Higher costs, especially for staff and energy, caused another hole of 1.5 billion euros, which the federal government also had to fill.

At the weekend, Bavaria and Bremen even threatened to scrap the traffic light government's prestigious project to relieve consumers in the state chamber if the federal government did not agree to contribute more money.

Bremen currently chairs the Conference of Transport Ministers and therefore sees itself as the mouthpiece of the federal states in the dispute with Federal Transport Minister Volker Wissing (FDP).

The subsidy dispute is not new

However, the dispute over additional federal subsidies has been going on for much longer.

Since the 1990s, the federal government has been obliged to transfer billions to the federal states every year for the operation of the rail network in local transport.

The obligation is even enshrined in the Basic Law.

While the burden of the rescue package is evenly distributed, the contributions to normal financing sometimes vary widely, as shown in the table.

The law only stipulates that the federal government must support the states.

Conversely, the states are not obliged to report to the federal government about the use of the funds - and whether they flow into local public transport at all.

The Federal Court of Auditors recently criticized this and called for more transparency in this area.

In the previous legislative period, the legislature decided to invest the regionalization funds "dynamically" and to increase them annually, also in order to be able to finance the desired expansion of local public transport.

However, the decision for the estimated increase came well before the drastic price increases of the past few months.

At the last conference of transport ministers in early May, there was an open exchange of blows between the federal states and the Federal Transport Minister.

Wissing insists that the federal states first disclose their finances and that a working group sets quality standards by autumn.

At least as far as the disclosure of finances is concerned, not all countries are apparently ready to do so.