Andreas Pinkwart wants “Germany to take off digitally”

Dusseldorf Tracking contacts by phone, authorities with a lot of fax traffic: it is well known that Germany lags behind when it comes to digitization in an international comparison. North Rhine-Westphalia was the first federal state in Germany to set up a digital ministry – under the leadership of Economics Minister Andreas Pinkwart.

In the Handelsblatt interview, he presented his strategy: re-registration in the digital citizens’ office, AI infrastructure for medium-sized companies, business registration from the sofa. Going to the authorities would then be superfluous.

Digital coaches would also help companies to digitize processes step by step, a competence center would support medium-sized companies in protecting against cyber attacks.

With regard to the federal election, he does not think it makes sense to compulsorily exclude a particular coalition. In his opinion, however, the ideas of his party could best be implemented with the CDU under its current boss, NRW Prime Minister Armin Laschet.

Read the entire interview here:

Minister Pinkwart, entrepreneurs in North Rhine-Westphalia can register their businesses digitally via a service portal. 350 services should be available there by 2022 – at the moment there are 80. How do you want to do that?
Since 2018, entrepreneurs in North Rhine-Westphalia have been able to register their businesses digitally from the sofa. That was an individual achievement at the start. In the meantime we have expanded it into the Wirtschafts-Service-Portal.NRW. In 2019 we had a good 30 services, including additional functions such as registration and re-registration. In the meantime, we have tripled the number of official procedures and standardized the digitization of administrative processes. It works as a one-stop shop with digital authentication and includes all authorities and chambers that are relevant for the company.

Nevertheless: 270 services are still missing. Do you think you will achieve your goal by the end of 2022?
In the meantime, we are scaling the processes using digitization routes. So I not only believe that we can do it, but I am firmly convinced of it.

You said “Disrupt” in the Handelsblatt podcast: “Germany not only invented bureaucracy, but also drove it to perfection in the analog world. Now Germany wants to digitize this analog world without errors. That can’t work. ”Isn’t that exactly your job?
It is not my goal to digitally map the analog world, but to rethink the bureaucracy in the digital world and thereby make it less complicated. In this way we can abolish rules that provide for personal appearance and signature. We’re just getting started here. In addition to the central digital access gate for the economy, we are building a digital citizens’ office. If you want to register a second home in another federal state, you can do so via the same portal as the registration of your first home. For a federal system with strong municipal responsibility, joint portal solutions with uniform gateways and standardized processes without media disruption are the breakthrough.

Functioning is one thing, security is another: more and more companies are being attacked by hackers. You set up a cybersecurity competence center – in March. Very late, right?
We would have liked to cooperate with the Federal Office for Security and Information Technology on a contractual basis. The application remained unprocessed on Horst Seehofer’s desk for two years. And then was rejected. The federal government is not resolutely on the move digitally, everything is taking far too long. Because the path didn’t work, we founded our own competence center for cybersecurity. In North Rhine-Westphalia, this center mainly supports small and medium-sized companies. We are doing a lot in North Rhine-Westphalia to take medium-sized businesses with us.

Namely?
We have also set up competence networks for 5G and for artificial intelligence as well as a real laboratory for blockchain, which are primarily aimed at medium-sized companies. We promote digital coaches who go to companies and show ways in which they can better position themselves digitally. As a rule, small companies have little infrastructure. The experts then develop concepts for the companies on how they can digitize themselves step by step. We help with digitization and innovation vouchers for small and medium-sized companies and through the NRW Bank with our attractive digitization and innovation loan. NRW is in the lead nationwide.

“There is still a lot of catching up to do”

Nonetheless, representatives of medium-sized companies complain about the inadequate competitiveness of German companies.
Germany has to take off digitally in order to catch up internationally. When it comes to the digitization of industry, however, German medium-sized companies are already way ahead: The medium-sized companies from Ostwestfalen-Lippe, for example, develop digital solutions for “Factory 4.0” in a leading-edge cluster that is unique in Germany, which are by far better than those from the USA or China . In order for medium-sized companies to be able to withstand international competition across the board, there is often a lot of catching up to do, especially with small businesses.

When medium-sized companies complain, they are also concerned with subsidies. Is there a lack of money – or are companies simply not using it?
On the contrary: last year, for example, we issued a digital voucher for retailers. We expected that 500 or 1000 vouchers would be requested directly. In the end, we had three times the number and had to top up with additional funds. The money was literally ripped out of our hands. The same applies to other programs such as our “Mittelstand innovative and digital” program.

You like to declare NRW as a role model. You have already brought up a digital ministry at the federal level. With you as the boss?
North Rhine-Westphalia was actually the first federal state with its own digital ministry – so we are the digital model ministry in this respect. In the meantime, there has been an attempt in all federal states to bundle responsibilities and competencies to a certain extent, although the specific design is very different: some have a minister responsible for digitization alone or with other tasks, while the state chancellery takes care of this topic for others.

How should the federal government then take the people with it?
At the federal level, the Federal Minister of the Interior is responsible for digital administration, the Federal Minister of Transport for digital infrastructure, the Federal Minister of Education for topics related to research and development – and the Chancellery is responsible for the digitization strategy. It is important to give the topic a face, to show people who really cares about digitization.

Dorothee Bär, the Minister of State for Digitization?
It remains to be seen who will be in charge of the government in the future and how the departments will be filled. It will be crucial that the person has the necessary responsibilities and competencies to drive digitization forward comprehensively.

“Do not compulsorily exclude coalitions”

You claimed that Horst Seehofer’s policy was slow. Would you be a better digital minister than him?
That would not be a very high standard either.

Today, on the day of our conversation, the Union is 21 percent behind the SPD. Would you also work with Olaf Scholz?
I don’t think it makes sense to compulsorily exclude coalitions, but we should tell the voters which constellation we can best implement our content with. Due to the positive government experience in North Rhine-Westphalia, we as the FDP can well imagine working together successfully with Armin Laschet at the federal level. We expect that he wants to tackle the modernization of Germany. That fits very well with the party program of the FDP, for which we are campaigning for as many votes as possible.

Mr. Pinkwart, thank you very much for the interview.

More: Digital associations are calling for clear responsibilities for the new digital ministry

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