The digitization of Germany must progress.
(Photo: dpa)
The Baltic states are in other spheres, Spain and the Netherlands are in the front ranks, and even the Czech Republic has overtaken Germany. The ranking of digital administration in the EU looks very bleak from a German perspective.
The German state is the sick man of Europe, so far there is hardly any improvement in sight. How bad the situation really is is shown by the all-encompassing resignation that is now spreading among citizens and entrepreneurs.
While the fax machines in France would probably have been on fire for a long time, we resign ourselves to our fate and write application after application, waiting ticket after waiting ticket.
The sick state system must actually concern us deeply. Because it slows down any progress, any crisis management. How is the energy transition supposed to succeed if around 50 folders of documents are required for each newly built wind turbine? Printed out neatly, filed and signed, mind you – the authorities are simply not ready for anything else.
So far there has been little progress
The coalition agreement of the traffic light still sounded promising: the SPD, Greens and FDP promised right at the beginning that they wanted to create a modern state. But little has happened since then – from next year Germany is even threatened with infringement proceedings because of its analogous administration.
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What already works digitally leaves little desire for more. The digital property tax return was horrible, students took days off to finally apply for their 200 euros energy flat rate online, and the transport companies balked at a digital 49-euro ticket.
But there is apparently no awareness of the urgency of the issue. The IT Planning Council, the central political control body for the digitization of administration, is currently meeting and should present reform proposals that are worthy of the name.
The governing parties need heated debates about data availability, interface management and digital solutions for all municipalities. Of course, the subject is complex and not sexy at all. But nothing less than the future viability of our country is at stake.
We citizens must also take the issue more seriously. We often talk about the German administration as if it were a borderline stupid, drunken uncle at a family celebration, who happens to be like that, but about whom you can still tell nice anecdotes and thus have the laughs on your side. But we will lose our laughter. It’s time to get serious about the failure of the state to make the leap into modernity. Because otherwise Germany will continue to decline.
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