Digital budget at a standstill

eco Chair of the Board Oliver Süme sees a root problem being that unclear digital responsibilities would slow down the traffic light coalition’s Internet policy. This can also be seen in the Digital Strategy. “While the Digital Strategy has been published, it remains unclear as to how the respective targets are to be implemented in concrete terms,” says Süme. “A forward-looking digital policy must not allow itself to be ground down between the bureaucratic squabbling between different departments.” An additional brake on Internet policy projects is the fact that the traffic light coalition has still not created the promised digital budget.

Annual trend: growing desire for digitalised administration

Süme also sees deficits and an urgent need for action in the field of digital administration. In his view, the implementation of the Online Access Act falls far short of expectations. The digitalisation of administrative services and the easing of bureaucracy are making only slow progress.

The desire for a digitalised administration has also grown among the population in the past year, as is shown by the Digital Policy Opinion Barometer** by eco and Civey: Whereas before the Bundestag elections in September 2021, around 38 per cent of respondents had stated that there was a particularly urgent need for the traffic light coalition to tackle the digital transformation of public authorities, by November 2022 this figure had risen to approximately 43 per cent. Simultaneously, only three per cent of respondents were satisfied with the status of digital administration in their federal state.

Digital policy barometer: More than 98 per cent dissatisfied when it comes to cybersecurity

From the public’s point of view, however, the area of cybersecurity is performing even more poorly: here, the satisfaction ratings have slipped from 3.4 to 1.6 per cent since September 2021. Most recently, just under one in two said that cybersecurity was the German federal government’s most urgent digital policy task. Before the Bundestag election, this was still stated by about one in three.

“The war in Ukraine also means that there is a need for action in the field of cybersecurity; the concern about worldwide hacker attacks has also caught on with the people in Germany,” says Süme. At the same time, the cybersecurity agenda presented by the German Federal Ministry of the Interior (BMI) points to a departure from the goals stipulated in the coalition agreement. Süme: “The cybersecurity agenda contains demands and measures that are detrimental regarding the goal of introducing more encryption in Germany.”

Sustainable digitalisation: the traffic light coalition must make more green electricity available on the market

On the subject of sustainable digitalisation, the German federal government has also recently become entangled with conflicting regulatory approaches: While the Energy Efficiency Act classifies data centres as energy-intensive and therefore even prescribes special regulations for these centres, the industry is currently not taken into account in the electricity price brake. “Data centres form the foundation of digital transformation and can offer sufficient sustainability potential solely through the utilisation of waste heat,” says Süme. “But if the traffic light coalition does not create a market of waste heat consumers and provide operators with sufficient green electricity, I unfortunately see red here.”

Meanwhile, more than one in two people in Germany share the opinion that, in the face of the energy crisis, the German federal government should support the operators of critical infrastructures such as data centres more strongly than it has so far.***

Digital infrastructure: Gigabit roll-out to take shape quickly

What is good to know is that there have also been improvements in the field of digital infrastructures under the traffic light coalition. With its Gigabit Strategy published in July 2022 and the development of the Gigabit Land Register, the traffic light coalition has come much closer to its goal of accelerating the roll-out of gigabit-capable infrastructure, says Oliver Süme. A potential analysis of private-sector roll-out and funding requirements is currently being carried out. The first roll-out stage of the Gigabit Land Register is to be published in December 2022.

This trend is also mirrored in the opinion of the population: while the roll-out of digital infrastructure was still clearly at the top of the Germans’ digital policy wish list before the Bundestag elections (52.8 per cent), this topic area now ranks third behind cybersecurity and digital administration. Satisfaction ratings for the roll-out of digital infrastructures have also grown from 4.3 to 10.5 per cent since September 2021.

Süme: “Overall, I have the distinct impression that the German federal government has recognised digitalisation as a key challenge and is making efforts to implement it against the backdrop of global developments and challenges. However, I would like to see stronger coordination between the ministries and a more strategic inclusion of digital solution potentials for current challenges, such as dealing with the advancing climate change.”