Joana Cotar, September 6, 2022, Digital Deutschland

German Bundestag, September 6, 2022, Plenarprotokoll 20/49, pp. 5280-5281.

Frau President. Valued colleagues.

All real property owners could just recently confirm how good digitalization is in Germany as they attempted, reporting by Elster, to fill out the questionnaire for the new property tax.

             Detlef Müller (SPD-Chemnitz): No problem! Half an hour!

The result: The program went directly down and was no longer to be reached. Welcome to Digital Deutschland 2022! Welcome to a digital developing country!  

That was the tip of the imputation exacted from the citizens. Germany is not in the position to gather together the information lying in the most diverse offices so that the officials themselves can figure the property tax. What nonsense, ladies and gentlemen!

Yes, much is promised in the new digital strategy. This time success shall be measurable, and each Ministry is allowed to contribute projects – whereby “allowed” is the wrong word; since it does not occur voluntarily. On the contrary: The first projects presented to Minister Wissing were so unambitious, so powerless and gutless, that the Minister decreed an after-hours round for the ministerial officials. Therein alone is seen that the majority of this government still have not grasped how our country must be overhauled.

In Germany at the end of 2021, only 7 percent of all broadband connections had fiber optic. In South Korea it is 87 percent, in Spain 79 percent; even Colombia and Costa Rica have overtaken us.

The online access law should provide for that our administration finally becomes digital. By the end of 2022, 575 administrative services should be available online, from the motor vehicle report to wedding announcements. Now guess how many will in fact be available at year’s end. 50! 50 of 575 – a crazy circumstance, ladies and gentlemen. And your solution: You extend the time period – it will surely work out – sometime or other.  

Cyber attacks cost the German economy up to 200 billion euros per year. Operators of critical infrastructure see themselves especially threatened. Where is your concrete answer to that, dear government? Instead of that, you exhibit an unyielding aversion against innovative technologies. Blockchain is meanwhile completely lacking in your strategy – a key technology which you completely ignore. For that, you speak of a “feminist digital policy”. What, God willing, should that be?

            Stephan Berandner (AfD): I ask myself that!

            Isabel Cadematori Dujisin (SPD):  I can gladly clarify!

Ladies and gentlemen, you are now almost a year in government and you still have not once managed to put forward a digital budget; we have heard it. This failure ensues when competences are not bundled in one place and no one bears responsibility, but it is shared by many various ministries which lack the passion for digital…this fragmentation nevertheless has one advantage and indeed for Minister Wissing; since if it again does not work out, he can shove off all responsibility from himself and say: The ministries are guilty. That is almost as practical as Olaf Scholz’s memory lapses, ladies and gentlemen. 

It is however less practical to have a minister who may have a say on digitalization yet has no idea of it. Thus in an interview Frau Faeser demanded so-called hackbacks in case of an attack, only to re-pulp this wish a few weeks later and demand the opposite. First she greeted the initiative for chat control by the EU, then she rejected it, although not entirely so. I am anxious as to what is to come of it. And before all things, I am anxious as to how the FDP will react to that. Following special funds, vaccination obligation, NetzDG [Internet Enforcement Law] and the new infection protection law à la Lauterbach, I therefrom proceed to that those who have betrayed freedom for a ministerial post will also here change their minds, ladies and gentlemen.

The Ampel’s hitherto digital performance is wanting. Yet there is now nevertheless the e-prescription. My absolute highlight in that regard: One can print the digital prescription and so go to the drugstore because the app, first and last, does not work. We are thereby again at the beginning of my speech: Welcome to Digital Deutschland 2022! Welcome to a digital developing country!

Many thanks.

            Maximilian Funke-Kaiser (FDP): Good, you contribute nothing constructive!                        Hearty thanks for this constructive speech!

 

[trans: tem]