What is the Scheuer-Toll Scandal?

If you've watched German news over the past couple of weeks....there's been increasing coverage of the Scheuer-Toll scandal, so I'll lay out the basic story of this Germany 'problem'.

Back around five years ago....a lot of Bavarians were whining about the cost of tolls in Switzerland (roughly 35 Euro per car per year) and Austria (roughly 85 Euro per car per year).  So the Bavarian government (mostly the CSU folks) designed this program that would require all non-German vehicles traveling via Germany....to have a sticker on the window and you'd buy it upon crossing the border. 

It was a logical 'pay-back' for what the Austrians and Swiss were doing.  To be honest, the Czechs do the same thing for their autobahn system (not their normal roads).

So this got pushed up to the national level after the 2017 German national election, and was going 'turbo-speed'.  It reached a level where actual contracts were being signed with companies to be the producer of the stickers, and control sales and profits. 

Then, the EU stepped in via their court system, and said 'no'.....Germany did not have the right to mandate such a toll system.  Logic would dictate that they'd then tell Austria and Switzerland the same thing.....but 'no'.....they were allowed to continue on.

Lots of anger came up in Bavaria over what the EU court system said on this topic.

But now, we've reached the next phase....several companies had signed contracts to support the toll system designed.  They want their money....roughly 560-million Euro (roughly 620 million dollars).

Scheuer is the Transport Minister and a member of the CSU Party.  He's the guy who is being 'blamed' at this point for the possible fine (if the court agrees).  The odds of the entire 560 million Euro cost?  I'd give it near 50-percent.  The actual contract has not been spelled out and I suspect there are some paragraphs which would help the Transport Ministry wiggle out of most of this.  There's probably a quitting fee, and you can figure around twenty to forty million probably will be the fee amount in the end. 

As for Scheuer?  Is he finished in politics?  I would suggest that by the end of 2020....he'll resign and walk away.  You can't really blame the guy, because of the EU standard....Germany has no right to toll situations for private cars of other nations.  If Germany had made it a toll for both German and non-German cars?  I suspect the EU would have accepted this, but the German public wasn't going to accept that type of situation.