Deutsche Bahn has to bear the billions in additional costs of the Stuttgart 21 rail project alone. On Tuesday, the Stuttgart Administrative Court dismissed the lawsuits of several railway companies against the state of Baden-Württemberg, the city of Stuttgart, the Stuttgart Region Association and Stuttgart Airport. With the lawsuits, the DB wanted to ensure that the project partners contributed financially to the additional costs of reorganizing the Stuttgart rail junction. The lawsuits were partly inadmissible and partly admissible, but unfounded, said presiding judge Wolfgang Kern when announcing the verdict.
The railway, which is officially the developer of Stuttgart 21, currently estimates the total costs for Stuttgart 21 at around 11 billion euros and has also factored in a buffer of 500 million euros. However, a financing agreement from 2009 only regulates the distribution of costs up to a total of a good 4.5 billion euros.
It was unclear who would bear the additional costs. The so-called speaking clause was anchored in the contract to deal with possible cost increases. What exactly was meant by the speaking clause was very controversial between the project partners. The railway assumed a “joint financing responsibility” and found that “the speaking clause establishes a right to further financing participation,” as the company announced. The project partners saw it differently and insisted that fixed amounts had been agreed. Participating in the additional costs would have meant massive burdens for the project partners.
The state capital of Baden-Württemberg warned in a hearing of possible negative consequences for the municipal budget. If the city participated, investments would have to be stopped for a longer period of time, a representative of the municipality stressed before the administrative court. The other project partners had also pointed out possible negative consequences for their budgets. If the city participated, the state of Baden-Württemberg would have had to bear additional costs of around 2.8 billion euros, the Ministry of Transport announced.
