Commentary on the coalition agreement: Black and red snake oil

The coalition is – and the two political groups that will now form the coalition have very similar digital policy positions: Digital technology is there for security and for the economy. The recently adopted coalition agreement between the CDU, CSU and SPD now shows just how much of a slippery slope digital policy will really have under black-red, as it essentially announces two things: a strong state, which is to be digitally modernized and given its ministry under CDU leadership, and at the same time the creation of all kinds of new powers for the security authorities, a far-reaching rejection of strong data protection. In between, there is a strong move in the direction of unbridled and blind purchasing of snake oil – i.e., all the talk about artificial intelligence.

This is supposed to help with almost everything that is not going well: Economic recovery? AI. Staff shortages? AI. Digitization of administration? AI. And police work reaching its limits? AI-based automation. This smells strongly of technosolutionism, i.e., the belief that you only need enough technology to solve existing problems. Perhaps you can also hand over the tedious thinking. However, to ensure that AI can reliably take over the thinking, the German mountains of data need to be dug up and made usable. The protection of personal data stands in the way of this, so it should be dismantled. And to finally implement what has so far failed due to the digital failure of the state – Who has actually been responsible for digitalization in the past two decades? — the digital citizen account is to become mandatory and the EUDI wallet the savior of all.

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It has become increasingly clear over the past two years that AI, which is often only a marginally modified LLM, looks good on snake oil labels: ChatGPT seems really clever at first glance. And it is politician-compatible, as it can be populated with tasks from a smartphone. And data centers, now called AI factories, are politically good three times over: once at the announcement, once at the ground-breaking ceremony and then at the opening. So many nice press releases for one event!

No marketing digitization!

Of course, it would be a good thing if digitization could finally make progress. However, recent examples such as the gaps in the electronic patient file uncovered by the CCC show that there is no reason to blindly trust that the state will keep its IT security promises. Of course, digitalization makes sense – if you know what you want and what you are doing. And it is also not wrong to re-examine what digital capabilities the police and intelligence services need for their work in the 21st century. However, what Black-Red has put on the table simply reads like a list of sales and marketing creatives mixed with old wishes from the security authorities' drawers.

While Donald Trump and his followers on the other side of the Atlantic offer every reason to finally take the path to greater digital sovereignty seriously, the CSU Interior Minister in Bavaria and the CDU Interior Minister in Hesse are relying on US data analysis software. While the Netherlands is considering how to become more independent of AWS and Azure, the black-red coalition agreement only includes a commitment to becoming less dependent. In concrete terms, this would also require taking the money in hand and drawing consequences, for example to reducing the billions spent on standard software from US manufacturers in the federal administration. But even if words were actually followed by deeds, experience with Germany's digital policy to date shows that even a third term of Donald Trump will probably have passed by then.

The trust of citizens must be earned. And the CDU, CSU and SPD have so far given little reason to do so in terms of digital policy. With a bit of gallows humor, you can at least give the parties credit for that: They haven't really promised much, unlike the traffic light government, which ended up delivering disappointingly little. So the bar is set low enough. And perhaps – one should never give up hope – we will be in for a surprise after all. After all, there's nothing wrong with that.

This commentary is the editorial for the new iX 05/2025, which will be published online on April 24 and as a magazine on April 25.

(vbr)