German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 19/237, pp. 30884-30885.
Herr
President. Valued colleagues.
Four years of
digital policy now lie behind us, or what the Federal government has held
to be digital policy. Time to draw up a balance. Where stands digital Germany
after an additional four years of the Grand Coalition?
Let us
initially give the scientific council at the Ministry for the Economy a chance
to speak, thus your own house, valued government. In its opinion commissioned by
Herr Altmaier, it comes to the conclusion – I quote:
In regards construction of the digital infrastructure, as well as in regards investment [Einsatz] in digital technologies and services, Germany has fallen behind many other OECD states.
We have not
even been able to hold onto our modest norm. We have fallen back. And no evil
opposition party certifies that to you, your own house certifies that to you,
valued government. A shameful failure in digital policy. Setzen, sechs [To the back of the class], ladies and gentlemen!
What absurd
promises have we heard! In every government declaration of Frau Merkel was
especial attention given to digital policy. No wonder, therein lies the future, it
determines our country’s ability to compete. Yet no acts have followed the
words.
Let us look
for once at some facts:
According to
the Federal network agency, 14 percent of German households presently have at
their disposal a fibreglass connection. It is on average in the EU more than
double as many, namely 33.5 percent, in Latvia 90 percent.
Scheurer’s newly
founded “dead zone office” [Funklochamt]
which shall concern itself with area-wide mobile phone coverage in Germany has,
with the exception of two managers, still not a single co-worker. The dead
zones thus, for the present, remain.
In the IMD
[Institute for Management Development] ranking of countries most able to
compete in digitalization, we in the last year have lost a place and stand just
at place 18.
15 months
after the first lockdown, only 57 percent of the schools have at their disposal
an ordinary digital equipment. In half of the schools, there is no WLAN for
students.
Among the top
50 of the world’s most innovative businesses, we still had in 2018 eight German
firms on the list; in 2021, it is only four.
In 2017, Herr
Altmaier promised us the most user-friendly administration in Europe by 2021.
Now we have 2021 and the opinion from the Ministry for the Economy speaks of a –
I quote – general “failure of organization”:
In public administration, Germany avails itself of structures, processes and ways of thinking which in part appear archaic.
GAIA-X
threatens to be stuck in its bureaucracy. If it does not soon come up with a
timely success, then the same fate as the De-mail threatens the entire project.
Mein Lieblingspunkt: The modernization of the nation’s IT
should have been concluded by 2025. Now it in fact lasts until 2032. The
Federal Audit Authority warns that the Bundesclient
[computer workplace] could be technologically obsolete before the Federal
government in eleven years will have rolled it out in the last of the
authorities. This is inconceivable. One could laugh if the theme were not so
serious.
There are
however two areas in which Germany is just great: One is the censorship on the
internet and the other is the digital surveillance of the citizens. What our
government just in the last four years had done is, for the one, sharpened the
NetzDG and, for the other, introduced the up-load filter. You have issued the
IT Security Law 2.0 which the professional people themselves have designated as
an anti-security law.
And because
it is so nice, you have then expanded the operation of Staatstrojanern: All 19 offices of the Constitution Defense now
can use it, even when no suspicion against a person was submitted. The SPD has
agreed with that – despite Saskia Esken’s promises that it in no case comes to
that. Who still believes one word from you, valued comrades, he really is no
longer to be helped.
Let us
summarize: Instead of overhauling digital, Germany in the last four years continues
to be dependent. This government could not do it. This government has not even
attempted it. There remains only the hope that in the next legislative period
this indeed seriously changes. For if we continue to sleep, Germany's digital
future appears black.
Many thanks.
We may meet in the next legislative period.
[trans: tem]
