eco – Association of the Internet Industry considers the establishment of a Ministry for Digitalisation to be essential for Germany’s digital activation.
Regarding the ongoing coalition negotiations between SPD, Bündnis 90/The Greens and FDP, eco Chair of the Board Oliver Süme has the following to say:
“Digitalisation is the driving force for our future living and working environments. Digital technologies can be the solution to the major challenges of the future in numerous fields of industry and life. As envisaged in the exploratory paper, the formulation of a consistent and forward-looking digital strategy for Germany, linked with concrete, measurable goals and milestones, should therefore be a particular priority for the Internet industry in the coalition negotiations and the resulting government programme.
“In my view, bringing the strategically relevant digital policy tasks together in one digital department with a clear mandate would still be the best structural solution for consistently managing the cross-cutting issue of digital transformation at the political level. The existing structures, in which competences for digitalisation are distributed among different departments and ministries, have not proven to be efficient.
“The concept of a Ministry for Digitalisation is not about assembling a cumbersome bureaucracy that absorbs everything related to the term ‘digital’. Rather, the coalition partners should create an assertive and responsive organisation that addresses key digitalisation issues strategically and stringently, and which would also set a framework for an agile and dynamic digitalisation of society and the industry. Such new steps would of course not be temporary, but would involve ongoing tasks that require constant readjustment and retuning. A fundamental rethink is needed here among political decision-makers if they want to realize the digitalisation of federal states and not bypass society and the industry in their work.
“ I would like to see more courage and political innovation from the future governing parties, so that they can also rethink political structures at this point and initiate the much-needed digital policy relaunch in Germany.”
eco has summarised the most important topics and fields of action for Germany’s digital activation in an Internet Policy Agenda.
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