Digital administration: The Germany app should fix it according to the Greens

"A country that simply works." This is what the Green parliamentary group in the Bundestag wants, even after three years in government. On Sunday, ahead of its Future Congress in Berlin, it published approaches to achieving this in a position paper. One of the core elements is more steam in e-government. According to the paper, a Germany app is to be developed to finally initiate "the decisive change" in public administration. According to the plan, the mobile application will provide "centralized, uncomplicated access to all administrative services, regardless of whether it concerns matters at federal, state or municipal level". The motto is: "Digital authorities instead of dusty fax machines."

With a "Government-as-a-Platform" (GaaP) approach, "we can create a proactive and user-friendly service", the Greens refer to the model of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) in the paper. Administrative services should therefore be moved to the cloud and offered via the internet. GaaP takes "many applications off people's hands" and picks them up "where they are today: on their smartphone or tablet". However, trust in digital systems is essential. The app must therefore "meet the highest standards in terms of data protection and IT security". Transparency in the handling of personal data and clear information about how it is used and protected are therefore essential.

In many cases, the digital town hall is still under construction

"Our vision of a digital administration is not only efficient, but also inclusive," the group also emphasizes: "It offers barrier-free, multilingual services and keeps analogue access open so that no one is left behind." The Greens are therefore not in favor of a much-criticized digital obligation, although the public sector would then have to continue to operate on two tracks. The parliamentary group also sees a need for legal action: "To ensure that the administration arrives everywhere in the digital age and functions across the board, we want to harmonize digitization legislation at federal and state level in a uniform administrative procedural law." This is unlikely to be an easy task in the current federal system and would probably have to include amendments to the constitution.

According to the current E-Government Monitor 2023 by Initiative D21, Germany, Austria and Switzerland are still lagging behind in terms of administrative digitalization. According to the survey, only 56% of German citizens used e-government services at all in 2022. At 58% of respondents, they are also significantly less satisfied with the online services offered by public authorities than in neighboring countries. However, the digital ID card has recently made a significant leap forward as an important component of e-government: according to the E-Government Monitor 2024, 22% have now used the corresponding eID function – an increase of 8 percentage points. Other promises made by the Greens include a "mobility guarantee" for public transport and a local renewable energy supply "to do it yourself and share".

(mma)