đ Itâs time to say Goodbye
Starting from February 23, 2025, the 9-Euro-Fonds will no longer be active!
Over 30,000 replaced tickets, 4,000 paid increased transport fees, many direct actions for socially just and sustainable mobility â this was the 9-Euro-Fund. Since September 2022, we have continued the idea of the German 9-Euro-Ticket on a self-organized basis. By way of this, we wanted to advocate politically for the reintroduction of affordable public transport for everyone. Today, more than two years later, over 30,000 people have participated in the initiative. However, the vision of a permanent 9-Euro-Ticket has moved further out of reach â and we are ending the Fund. Why? Thatâs what we explain in this text.
Looking Back: This Was the 9-Euro-Fund
Traveling to the Baltic Sea for just 9 euros, moving around the city daily, driving to protests â in the summer of 2022, an unexpected glimpse of a social-ecological future appeared. As a relief measure for the population during the energy crisis, the German coalition government introduced a nationwide public transport ticket for 9 euros. The 9-Euro Ticket was a genuine success story: popular among the public, not excessively expensive as a measure, and at the same time effective in financially relieving people during inflation as well as encouraging a climate-friendly shift from cars to public transport. Almost unbelievable that after only three months, the government decided to end it.
The end of the ticket was the starting signal for the 9-Euro-Fund: We didnât want to let good mobility for all be taken away â and decided to continue the 9-Euro-Ticket by ourselves. The idea: Everyone who joins pays 9 euros into a shared fund and then uses public transport â without a ticket. If members were fined, we would pay the increased transport fee from the collective donation pot. In this way, the fund continued the idea of the 9-Euro-Ticket on a civil society level and supported people with little money. At the same time, with our direct action, we wanted to create political pressure for the reintroduction of the 9-Euro Ticket.
Starting our low-threshold act of civil disobedience, however, we had to overcome some hurdles. The first: Previous actions by free ride unions or ticket strikes had sometimes faced charges of „fraudulent service procurement.“ Our precaution: With fund membership, members could order stickers with the inscription „9-Euro Fund â I ride without a ticket.“ With this bold transparency measure, we wanted to protect members from the accusation of „fraudulent service procurement.“ The legal situation is unclear â but if a case arose, we wanted to establish a precedent that someone visibly traveling without a ticket does not fall under the „fraud“ provision.
The second hurdle: How do you get a financial account for a legally ambiguous initiative like the 9-Euro Fund without putting individuals at legal risk? After some back and forth, the fund was organizationally integrated under the party DIE PARTEI. Political parties enjoy special legal protection due to their role in political opinion formation and decision-making. As part of the PARTEI, the fund was thus protected from prosecution. An important and interesting insight for activists who want to stir up public discourse with controversial actions.
Beyond that, we developed a hack together with DIE PARTEI â using the state against the state. Since the fund became part of DIE PARTEI, memberships were considered party donations, which are financially subsidized by the state at 45%. With the additional money that flowed into our fund through this public party financing, we agreed on a cooperation with the Freedom Fund (Freiheitsfonds): the campaign used this extra funding to bail out people imprisoned for riding public transport without a ticket. With our action, we were thus able to prevent 1,000 days of imprisonment for people incarcerated due to fare evasion.
Why Stop Now?
After we informed our members that we were ending the 9-Euro-Fund, many asked about the reasons. In this text, we want to explain and think about future perspectives.
Action Without a Political Window of Opportunity
We started the 9-Euro Fund to advocate for socially just and climate-friendly mobility for all â specifically for the reintroduction of the 9-Euro-Ticket. While at the beginning, we even debated whether demanding a 29-Euro-Climate-Ticket was justifiable, reality has moved beyond us. First, the Deutschlandticket â the successor of the 9-Euro-Ticket – cost 49 euros, now 58 euros, and soon probably back to the previous standard price, only nationwide. All that remains of the visionary project is digitalization and bureaucratic simplification â there is currently no real political window of opportunity for our demands for climate-friendly and socially just mobility. The action thus no longer seems like a promising intervention into public discourse: The train has left without us.
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The Fund as a Bridging Technology: Mobility Justice Is a State Responsibility
With the fund, we wanted to create a bridging technology for a mobile civil society until the federal government reintroduced the 9-Euro-Ticket. Instead, we found ourselves increasingly compensating for government failure. The problem: With our action, we were able to pay increased transport fees in solidarity and support many people financially in the past yearsâ but our members still remained legally at risk. Additionally, we are convinced that ensuring mobility justice is ultimately a state responsibility â and we want to continue fighting for this goal politically. Currently, the fund is merely patching holes that the government has created.
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Direct Help vs. Service Mentality
We received very different feedback from our fund members. Some wrote to us that they couldnât afford a monthly transport ticket on their training salary but needed public transport to get to work. Pensioners told us they couldnât afford bus rides to the doctor on their basic pension. The emails from these fund members move us and make it difficult to close the fund. However, we are convinced that it is the stateâs responsibility to provide good and fair mobility infrastructure for everyone, and we will continue to advocate for that politically. On the other hand, some members eventually may have viewed the fund more as a service â which was not always easy for us, as its use was also meant to be a political action.
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Coming to an End and Making Space for Something New
Sometimes we have to bring things to an end. Campaigns and political organizations tend to keep going, even when their political momentum has faded. They then only exist in the shadows of public awareness. We believe this is a problem for activist movements: Initiatives that no longer take off bind resources and prevent new ideas from emerging. We are also closing the fund because we want to make space for the next big coup â from us or others!
What Happens Now? â And some âLessons Learnedâ
(Re)distributing Resources
As our campaign lost traction, we focused on redirecting our resources and distributing money where it could have the greatest political impact: For instance to our sister campaign, the Freedom Fund (Freiheitsfonds), which advocates for the decriminalization of fare evasion and bails people out of prison that are incarcerated because of riding public transport without a ticket. Or to the initiative Sanctions-Free (Sanktionsfrei), with whom we funded a climate stipend for welfare recipients to highlight the importance of social compensation in climate policies. With the remaining money in the 9-Euro-Fund, we will do the same again â and donate it to the Freedom Fund. Our goal: not just to accumulate money, but to strengthen the ecosystem on the left.
Additionally, we are using our money to make one last political stunt: In the past two months, together with Die PARTEI, we transformed the 9-Euro Fund into the 0-Euro Fund. In the national election campaign, we want to show that mobility is a fundamental right for all â and that we are not giving up on the idea of ticket-free public transport altogether!
Who Dares Wins
When we launched the campaign, we noticed that while many people talk about organizing and standing up for less privileged people, the threshold for actually daring to try something new seems to be very high. We spoke with representatives from NGOs as well as youth wings of political parties â but in the end, many were too concerned about engaging in an action that wasnât legally airtight and provocative. However, who dares nothing, gains nothing. And so, too often, actions remain within the predictable, safe political space. Our appeal: Those who have many resources can have a big impact. And between a press conference and sabotage, there is a lot of room for creative campaign approaches â if you dare!
The Power of Party Law
Daring something new also meant that we werenât always entirely legally secure. Through our work with the fund, we came to understand the power of German party legislation â both in terms of the legal protection it offers for actions on the edge of legality as well as regarding party financing, which provided our action with a solid state subsidy. Using a party for movement politics â thatâs something the far-right scene has long been doing with the small party âDer Dritte Weg.â Itâs worth thinking ahead about future actions in this context.
CopyCat: Adopting Approaches
When we built the 9-Euro-Fund, we learned from other initiatives before us: The very idea of creating a fund was inspired by Freiheitsfonds and Sanktionsfrei. We were able to learn from failed actions like free riding societies in Germany, as well as from similar successful initiatives in Sweden and France. Now, we invite you to do the same: Copy the fund, modify it, adapt it â so that the next big coup can happen!
Finally: A Huge Thank You!
We thank everyone who participated, provided a helping hand in the beginning, and trusted the fund! It has been a great pleasure and whole lot of fun to engage in civil disobedience for mobility justice with you, our members, ride public transport through the city, demonstrate, and place pressure on Volker Wissing. Letâs drive on!