Expectations high for German government’s e-adminstration promise

Expectations for a successful transition to an e-administration in Germany are high among politicians and business leaders, but in reality, rollout remains slow, and the laws supposed to facilitate it are being criticised for failing to prioritise. 

Read the original German story here.

Despite being an economic powerhouse that accounts for almost a quarter of the EU’s total GDP, Germany ranks 13th among EU countries for digitalisation, according to the EU Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI).

Therefore, pressure on Germany to move towards a more digitalised administrative framework is building.

“The world needs a healthy and vibrant Europe. The world needs an ‘intelligent’ Europe. But having an ‘intelligent’ Europe is impossible if Germany is not an ‘intelligent’ country. Germany can only be a ‘smart’ country if it has a ‘smart’ government,” said Brad Smith, Vice Chairman and President of Microsoft, at the Smart Country Convention (SCCON).

“And a ‘smart’ government for the future is based on two things: ‘smart’ people and ‘smart’ technology,” Smith added.

A sense of urgency is also found among Germany’s policymakers. German Justice Minister Marco Buschmann said there is no future for the state if it is not also digital; “Otherwise, citizens will withdraw their trust in it”.

“It is imperative that we make progress with the digitalisation of the state. Otherwise, we won’t even be able to talk about artificial intelligence,” Buschmann added.

In its bid to modernise the administration, the government promised not to lose sight of its citizens.

“It’s about people, about citizens. They must be able to utilise the opportunities offered by new technology. They must be protected from the risks of the cyber world,” said German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser, stressing that democratising data access is critical to promoting participation and inclusion.

Online Access Act at the heart of the debate

The amendment law to the Online Access Act (OZG 2.0) is at the heart of the digitisation push. With the first version, which came into force in 2017, Berlin set itself the goal of making all administrative services of federal, state and local authorities otherwise know as front-end digitalisation, available online.  

With the deadline long passed and the initial OZG still being implemented, the second version, is on the way.

The first reading of the amendment law, OZG 2.0, took place at the end of September, and a second reading of the amendment bill is expected to take place in the Bundestag soon.

OZG 2.0 is now intended to enable the digitalisation of internal administrative processes and specialist procedures, so-called back-end digitalisation, between the federal, state and local governments to utilise newly developed online procedures across all levels.

The revised version is intended to avoid administrative services being applied for online but then processed on paper within the public authorities. The amendment law is also more closely interlinked with modernising administrative registers, a core area of administrative digitalisation.

Reality check

However, the amendment law is already being criticised, such as by the German Council for the Review of Legal Norms and at the beginning of October by experts at the Committee on Home Affairs hearing.

Critics say that there is a lack of prioritising the most important and most frequently used administrative services including business incorporation, re-registration, family benefits and vehicle registration which were not made accessible to everyone using standardised and end-to-end digital processes.

They also say that modernising the underlying IT infrastructure and developing cross-level digital policy governance is not given enough attention.

One of the main obstacles is the different framework architectures of the federal states and municipalities, which make implementation difficult.

For example, the current problem is that companies have to deal with many different municipalities when rolling out gigabit fibre networks. According to different municipal systems, these companies must submit their building applications and authorisation contracts individually.

“Companies are already overwhelmed. Especially medium-sized companies with all the statistical information they have to provide on a regular basis,” said Volker Redder, a member of the liberal FDP.

Specific measures to ensure real added value include a legal entitlement with deadlines for implementation, binding requirements for rapid data exchange between authorities, and providing various identification methods.

According to Reinhard Brandl, a member of the opposition CDU/CSU in the Bundestag, the reason for the slow implementation of administrative digitalisation lies in the government’s structures.

“The government made a strategic mistake in its coalition agreement. It spread the issue of digitalisation across all ministries. There is a digital minister who is not even responsible for such issues. And at the moment, we don’t have anyone in the government driving the issue forward,” says Brandl.

Adequate funding is another element, yet critics see the planned cuts in administrative digitalisation in the 2024 federal budget as worrying.

A significant impact on achieving a digital state in Germany is the “Digital-Only-Principle,” which will affect companies in approximately five years. It will ensure that company-related administrative procedures will only be available online.

Nevertheless, the OZG 2.0 promises improvements, especially when strengthening central basic components such as the federal user account “Nutzerkonto Bund” and the data protection cockpit.

[Edited by Kjeld Neubert/Luca Bertuzzi/Alice Taylor]

Read more with EURACTIV