Berlin The FDP wanted it, the digital associations wanted it, and the vast majority of Germans also thought it was a good idea: a separate ministry for digital affairs. According to a survey by the digital association Bitkom from September this year, 71 percent of those questioned were in favor of their own digital department.
The FDP said in the election campaign: “A digitization ministry has to speed up.” Party leader Christian Lindner was a personal advocate of the approach to get away from outdated practices such as faxing and pneumatic mail, as he repeatedly emphasized in the Bundestag and during his election campaign appearances.
But now, when it is time to put this idea into practice, it becomes clear: In all likelihood there will be no independent digital ministry in the new federal government. This is what several people familiar with the negotiations to form a traffic light coalition told the Handelsblatt.
The FDP, which is the only one of the three traffic light parties to have expressly stipulated such a department in its election manifesto, is “on the retreat” with its demand, said a negotiator.
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During the discussions in the specialist working group, the liberals sometimes gave the impression that they only had to say digital department and that all the balls were rolling towards them, said another insider. In the meantime, however, according to Handelsblatt information, the FDP is also gaining acceptance that the establishment of a new ministry would slow down rather than accelerate the pace of digitization.
Personal bloodletting
The problem: having its own digital ministry would entail too much organizational and personnel restructuring. Finding premises in Berlin Mitte for a new Federal Ministry is extremely difficult.
In addition, a major technical restructuring would have to go hand in hand with the creation of a new authority and many other departments would have to accept bloodletting, is the assessment in FDP circles.
In addition, digitization is a classic cross-cutting issue. From negotiators of the SPD it is therefore said that it is obvious that digitization projects are already being pursued in all ministries, which, however, cannot simply be bundled into a single department without risking a loss of competence.
There is “no clear logic”, which is why, for example, the Ministry of Health should suddenly no longer be responsible for the electronic patient record project.
According to reports, it would be conceivable to upgrade an existing ministry with responsibility for digital and to bundle certain topics in it. North Rhine-Westphalia, for example, could serve as a model, said an insider.
Liberals are likely to have to say goodbye to their call for a digital ministry.
(Photo: dpa)
There is a ministry for economy, innovation, digitization and energy there. The department is currently headed by the FDP politician Andreas Pinkwart, who negotiates the traffic lights in the federal government in the digital specialist working group.
It would also be conceivable to strengthen a future digital state minister in the Chancellery. One negotiator spoke of the possibility of appointing a “Federal Minister with special tasks”.
With an “agile team” he could take the lead in digital core projects, would have coordination rights vis-à-vis other departments, but would then also have to be able to access the expertise of the existing digital departments of Department 6 in the Chancellery for his task.
Second option: Chancellery
That would roughly correspond to the idea of the SPD in particular. Chancellor candidate Olaf Scholz was skeptical of the idea of setting up a new digital ministry during the election campaign. Instead, digitization should be “a matter for the boss,” that is, bundled in the Chancellery, he said in the summer at a Handelsblatt event. He could imagine installing a “Chief Digital Officer” in the Federal Chancellery. It takes someone in the position with a deep understanding of new technologies.
Helge Braun (CDU) is already acting as the “Federal Minister with Special Tasks” in the Chancellery. In the opinion of the traffic light negotiators, the executive head of the Federal Chancellery has only insufficiently fulfilled his role in the field of digitization.
The outgoing digital state minister Dorothee Bär (CSU) was also unable to move a lot due to a lack of employees and a budget. This should not be repeated if one finally wants to make progress with digitization.
For the FDP, the solution would be to attach the “digital” to another department, but the better option. The liberals could at least partially sell the election campaign promise of wanting to set up a “digital ministry” as having been fulfilled.
Docking digitization as a core issue of the party with the probably SPD-led Chancellery is therefore more likely to meet with skepticism among the liberals. Many in the FDP see the emergency solution of expanding an existing ministry as a transition to a real digital department in one of the upcoming legislative periods. That is still the stated goal, it says in the party.
The last salvation for a digital ministry could only be the department arithmetic of the coalition partners. If the distribution of personnel requires another ministry, a digital department would be the most obvious option.
Skepticism among digital associations
Representatives of the digital economy reacted soberly to the decision of the traffic light parties. The President of the Bundesverband Digitale Wirtschaft (BVDW), Dirk Freytag, told the Handelsblatt that a separate ministry would have been important above all as an instance for the planned “digitization check” of new laws. This would signal that “the digitization of Germany is finally high on the agenda,” says Freytag.
Oliver Süme, CEO of the Association of the Internet Industry, Eco, sees it similarly: “In my opinion, bundling the strategically relevant digital-political tasks in a digital department with a clear mandate is still the best structural solution for consistently managing the cross-cutting issue of digital transformation politically “, So Süme.
Bitkom President Achim Berg welcomes the solution to rededicate an existing ministry, but he also warns against viewing digitization as an appendage. You should “not just be on the doorbell”.
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