eco Chair of the Board Oliver Süme: “We now need a roadmap in the form of an overall digital strategy to bring all the threads together.”
Commenting on the coalition agreement presented yesterday by the SPD, Bündnis 90/The Greens and the FDP, eco Chair of the Board Oliver Süme said:
“The topic of digitalisation can be found in almost all sections of the coalition agreement, thus duly reflecting the importance of the cross-cutting topic of digitalisation. It is clear that the future German federal government intends on making a digital breakthrough.
The first positive aspect is the clear emphasis on trust and security. We welcome, in particular, the promotion of security by design, the planned focus on closing security vulnerabilities and the establishment of approaches such as the right to encryption.
Secondly, there is a clear commitment to innovation and establishing a strong technology location, for example through the determined expansion of digital infrastructures, the promotion of real laboratories, and the accelerated digitalisation of the state and administration.
A third asset is the close link between the topics of digitalisation and sustainability. We have long pointed out that these two issues need to be considered together because digital infrastructures and digital technologies and services offer great potential for tackling climate change and other sustainability goals. Bringing forward the coal phase-out to 2030 is ambitious, but the switch to a sufficient renewable energy supply is absolutely necessary to constructively flank the associated challenges for the industry, especially data centres, which are already supposed to oparate climate-neutrally by 2027. The planned end of the Renewable Energy Law (EEG) levy from 2023 will also be helpful here.
The approaches addressed in the coalition agreement are sound and comprehensive; the right topics and the need for action have been identified. Now it will be a question of how the new German federal government, without a coordinating Ministry for Digitalisation, will succeed in implementing a consistent and simultaneously ambitious digital policy across all ministries. In our view, this requires an overall digital strategy that provides a clear roadmap for the digital transformation in Germany.
We as eco – Association of the Internet Industry are now looking forward to jointly shaping these and many other points over the next four years!”
