At the end of August 2014, the German government published its “Digital Agenda 2014-2017”. It lays out basic principles of the government’s digital policy, which are the basis for exploring the development potential for individual policy areas. After two years, eco takes stock of what has been done so far. In the following interview, Oliver Süme, eco Director Policy & Law gives an overview of the progress to date.
Mr. Süme, the German government set itself ambitious goals with its “Digital Agenda 2014-2017”. What do you think of the progress made in the last two years?
When the governing coalition presented the Digital Agenda, it was totally unclear how much they actually wanted to get involved with the implementation. The Agenda was intended as “homework”, which did not give it a very strong binding character. Even still, the progress made since is quite respectable. Over half of the measures have been implemented, including several of great significance for the IT sector. For example, the recent abolishment of WiFi third-party liability, the IT security act, or the EU General Data Protection Directive.
How happy are you with the speed of implementation?
The government has realized how important digitalization is as a topic and has undertaken numerous steps to further the process. A good example is how the Chancellor got involved in the endless debate on the new WiFi law. After she “laid down the law”, as the press put it, the coalition parties quickly agreed after all.
It is now important that the government doesn’t take a step back and switch into election mode. So many topics have not yet been addressed and, of course, new issues are arising all the time as digitalization progresses. These are issues the government must find solutions for. The next government has to have a focus on digitalization.
Which goals do you think are missing in the Digital Agenda?
There is still no convincing overarching concept for the extension of universal broadband provision, even though more funds were recently released for that purpose. Country-wide transfer speeds of 50 Mbit/s by 2018 – the current aim – is only a temporary solution, as anyone should realize by now. With totally outdated copyright laws, politicians should push even harder for EU-wide modernization and make sure that this does not develop in the wrong direction – like current thinking on EU ancillary copyright law. It would also make sense to bundle digital competence even more.
The three Federal Ministers who are responsible for digitalization – Sigmar Gabriel (SPD), Thomas de Maizière (CDU) and Alexander Dobrindt (CSU) – have done a good job. The next government needs to take the increasing importance of digital policy to heart. The concentration of digital topics in one portfolio would be a strong signal that the relevance of the topic is appreciated and that steering measures are uniform and efficient. That would lead to less friction loss and less drawn-out decision-making processes.
The three ministers will be attending eco’s Net Policy Forum on 6 September as guests. What messages would you like them to take home with them?
We see it as an important signal that all three ministers have registered and are prepared to join in the discussion. We hope to be able to show at the event how many challenges still need to be dealt with during the current legislatory period – despite the upcoming elections. The climate for start-ups urgently needs to improve, for example. There are also many unresolved issues related to digital education.
