Cabinet reshuffle on the government bench: Steffen Bilger is to take over the Transport Ministry.

When Steffen Bilger was introduced on Sunday as the new Federal Minister of Transport, a remarkable week in Berlin came to an end. First Patrick Schnieder was to go. Then the Lower Saxony CDU financial politician Fritz Güntzler was considered as successor. Güntzler pulled out at short notice. Finally the choice fell on Bilger. Unlike most of his predecessors, the 47-year-old Baden-Württemberg native does not enter the office as a lateral entrant. He has known transport policy for years from the engine room.

State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Transport

Bilger has sat in the Bundestag since 2009 for the Ludwigsburg constituency. For nine years he worked on the Transport Committee, afterwards he was from 2018 to 2021 Parliamentary State Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Transport under Andreas Scheuer. Since the government change in 2025 he has led the CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the Bundestag as the First Parliamentary Managing Director. In Berlin he is regarded as a policy-oriented organizer who knows political processes and brings administrative experience.

For the taxi industry, this is initially good news. Because the list of outstanding issues is long. The evaluation of the PBefG reform of 2021 has shown that many of the promises at that time have so far only been partially fulfilled. The discussion about minimum charges for rental cars, the enforcement of the return obligation, the role of digital platforms and the increasing market concentration in large cities continues to preoccupy associations and companies. The Passenger Transport Act remains the central legal framework for taxi and rental-car traffic. Its core pillars include the fare tariff obligation and the obligation to transport passengers for taxis, as well as the return obligation for rental cars.

What does "flexible and technology-open" mean for Bilger?

Unlike his short-term possible predecessor Fritz Güntzler, Bilger has already dealt with these topics. Although there are no known programmatic speeches specifically on the taxi trade, his political career repeatedly brought him to the intersections of commercial passenger transport. During his time in the Ministry of Transport, he was, among other things, concerned with questions of the digitization of mobility, autonomous driving, and the regulation of new mobility offerings. His public transport policy follows a guiding principle: mobility should be organized flexibly, economically, and open to technology. The needs of people are at the center of modern transport policy, Bilger stated several times.

Therein lies an opportunity for the taxi trade—and a risk.

The opportunity is that Bilger already understands the complex interdependencies of passenger transport. Unlike a minister from a different field, he does not have to learn first why a taxi is regulated differently from a rental car. He knows that taxis are part of the public service and therefore are subject to special obligations. It is also likely that he is aware of why the return-to-base obligation for rental cars remains so politically contested. It was only in June of this year that the Federal Court of Justice again confirmed its fundamental admissibility. For the industry, that was an important signal.

The risk arises from Bilger's fundamental openness to technological innovations. In his previous political work, he regularly relied on digitalization and new forms of mobility. For platform companies like Uber or Bolt, this could mean that their concerns will continue to be heard in the ministry. At the same time, with autonomous vehicles, the next upheavals are already around the corner. Robotaxis, autonomous shuttle services, and AI-powered fleets will increasingly move onto the political agenda in the coming years.