Transport Minister Volker Wissing (FDP) has new plans and also wants to approve the construction of motorways more quickly. Criticism hails from his Green coalition partners. Accordingly, the plans of the FDP politician are contrary to the goal of achieving climate neutrality by 2045.
Federal Transport Minister Volker Wissing (FDP) also wants to speed up the construction of long-distance roads and has thus met with criticism from the Green coalition partner. According to his plans, not only waterways, railway lines and airport infrastructure should be built and expanded more quickly, but also federal trunk roads if they are “firmly scheduled” or if an “urgent need” has been identified for them. However, there has long been a debate with Environment Minister Steffi Lemke from the Greens about the fundamental question of which projects should be accelerated. Your house had recently rejected a faster construction of freeways.
Wissing’s draft for a “law to accelerate approval procedures in the transport sector”, which became known on Friday, states that “for the more rapid realization of projects in the area of federal trunk roads, federal railways and federal waterways, an earlier start of construction, extended preliminary work and early ownership should be made possible”. . “Der Spiegel” had previously reported on the draft law.
Wissing told the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung” (Saturday) that the construction and repair of dilapidated bridges and roads was also a priority for him. If this does not happen, citizens would have to live with permanent bottlenecks. “What we already know from the corona pandemic could then become everyday life: Missing products in the supermarkets, for example.”
The draft lists 46 road construction projects, including the controversial extension of the A100 in Berlin or the extension of the A20 in the north from Westerstede in Lower Saxony to Weede in Schleswig-Holstein. These could then be enforced more quickly in the “overriding public interest” and for “public safety” in order to do justice to the “outstanding importance of an efficient highway infrastructure for the common good.”
A spokesman for Environment Minister Lemke had emphasized that the focus must be on projects for the energy transition, energy security and the transformation to climate neutrality. “Speeding up the construction of motorways or airports does not make sense per se because they conflict with the goal of climate neutrality.”
The Green right-wing politician Lukas Benner demanded in the “Spiegel” that a clear prioritization of projects was necessary. “If you accelerate everything, you end up accelerating nothing at all.” There has also been criticism from environmentalists. “The credibility of this federal government and thus also of the co-governing Greens is at stake,” said Jürgen Resch, managing director of environmental aid. FDP parliamentary group leader Christian Dürr countered that he would be “very surprised if the Greens wanted to block the planning acceleration of all things”.
Wissing called for the SPD, Greens and FDP government to pass another planning acceleration law this year, which would guarantee that planning times would be halved. Justice Minister Marco Buschmann from the FDP also wants to build traffic routes more quickly than before and has included this in his plans to speed up administrative court proceedings.
