With the new Online Access Act (OZG), the Liberals want to oblige the authorities to offer administrative services digitally from a certain point in time.
(Photo: dpa)
Berlin The FDP wants to make much faster progress in administrative digitization in Germany than before. To this end, the Liberals want to oblige the authorities with the new Online Access Act (OZG) to offer administrative services digitally from a certain point in time. This emerges from a position paper by the parliamentary group in the Bundestag, which is available to the Handelsblatt.
“We therefore want to introduce a legal right to digital administration for the citizens, which is linked to clear deadlines,” said the FDP digital politician Maximilian Funke-Kaiser to the Handelsblatt. If the authorities do not meet the deadlines, penalties should be possible.
“Government agencies should have to face noticeable consequences if they do not live up to such a legal right,” the paper says. “Such a model creates clear conditions and an effective incentive to develop services at a high level of maturity.” The paper does not state what the consequences should look like in concrete terms.
Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser (SPD) has already submitted her draft for a new law on the digitization of the administration to the internal government departmental coordination. With the so-called OZG 2.0, the minister is reacting to the previously sluggish government digitization.
The federal and state governments had five years to digitize their services. The original OZG, which was passed by the Bundestag in August 2017, was intended to serve this purpose. It gave countries until the end of 2022 to offer all 575 administrative services online. But the target was missed by far. In order to advance digitization, the OZG 2.0 should now remedy the situation.
FDP digital politician warns Faeser against “continue as before”
Funke-Kaiser now asked Faeser to “more vigour”. “A new edition of the OZG must not continue like this, but must present a fundamentally new approach.” Citizens do not have to justify why they want to interact digitally with the state. “The state must explain itself if it does not allow this,” said Funke-Kaiser.
>> Read also: “Clearly below expectations” – Regulatory Control Council publicly criticizes the Minister of the Interior
In order to make progress, an “ambitious revision of the OZG” is necessary, according to the FDP paper. A central point is to increase the pressure on the authorities. The desired legal claim should therefore be based on the “OZG maturity model”, which is used to measure the online availability of services. Specifically, it should be about services that have already been prioritized, also known as “OZG boosters”.
This means 35 so-called “one for all” projects, i.e. online services for administrative services that are developed and operated by one federal state and can be used by others. These include re-registration, parental allowance, building permits or driver’s licenses.
There should be an entitlement to state service provision at maturity level 2 (online application possible without the ability to submit evidence) by 2025, and at maturity level 3 (online service can be processed in full, including all evidence) by 2027.
Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser (SPD) has already submitted her draft for a new law on the digitization of the administration to the internal government departmental coordination.
(Photo: dpa)
The FDP also intends to link financial aid for states and municipalities to successful OZG implementation. “The federal subsidy is then based on the level of maturity of a project,” said Volker Redder, FDP chairman in the Digital Committee. “This model provides a strong incentive to complete projects in less time with higher quality.”
Union is concerned about the economy and innovation location due to the digitization backlog
The FDP sees a lack of uniform interfaces as a major brake on progress. As a result, authorities in the municipalities and the federal states cannot easily exchange data and documents. “In the future, the federal government must specify the data standard so that problems with incompatible data are finally a thing of the past,” said Redder.
The Ministry of the Interior sees the new OZG as an “important milestone on the way to administrative digitization”. “But the prerequisite for success is also the interaction with determined, consistent factual action in the further OZG implementation,” says the ministry in response to a request from the Union parliamentary group, which is available to the Handelsblatt.
Nonetheless, the ministry is refraining from setting a new timetable for the provision of a digital service for citizens and companies. “Providing electronic access to administrative services is an ongoing task for the federal and state governments, including local authorities,” says the ministry’s response. “Another period of grace would contradict this statement.”
The deputy head of the Union parliamentary group, Nadine Schön (CDU), criticized the plans. The attitude of the ministry reveals “the sluggishness of the German digital tanker with weak engines,” Schön told the Handelsblatt. “The self-proclaimed progressive coalition is not only testing the patience of the citizens, it is also putting our business and innovation location at risk.”
More: Bulgaria, Romania and Greece could overtake Germany when it comes to modernization