Digital policy: Black-Red creates Ministry for Digitalization

Under the heading "Responsibility for Germany", the Christian Democrats, Christian Socialists and Social Democrats have agreed on a number of measures, including the creation of a digital ministry. The coalition agreement that the representatives of the two parties have now agreed on is 146 pages long.

It was a great deal of work, said Friedrich Merz (CDU), who is likely to become Federal Chancellor, on Wednesday in Berlin, but above all it was a "strong plan" for the country. It is about the future of the country, its people and Europe.

Digital Ministry is coming

The federal government is answering the question of how digital policy and administrative digitization will be organized in the future with a ministry that will be responsible for digitization and state modernization. "To link this modernization of the state primarily with digitalization," announced Merz. The aim is to become a modern country. There was already a lot of speculation on Wednesday about who would be appointed to the ministry, including the Hessian Digital Minister Kristina Sinemus (CDU). This has not yet been confirmed.

The fax machines in the state must be disposed of, demanded SPD chairman Lars Klingbeil. However, there are hardly any really new projects in the section of the coalition agreement on administrative digitization and digital policy. Instead, existing projects are finally to be brought to a successful conclusion, such as the modernization and linking of registers or the once-only principle, according to which data is only to be collected once. A total of four lines are used to formulate the intentions for the digital economy – to make Germany a "strong digital location with a strong digital ecosystem".

A "technology attack" is to come from the "high-tech" ministry, from quantum computing to the hyperloop, announced CSU leader Markus Söder at, referring to the Ministry of Education and Research, which falls to his party. The mobile communications infrastructure company, which is already scheduled to be wound up, is to be continued "at least until the approved funding projects have been completed". In future, mobile communications and fiber optic expansion should be in the "overriding public interest".

Data retention comes back

In other areas too, the coalition wants to set significantly different priorities than the traffic light government: in future, IP addresses in Germany will be stored for three months, Merz announced.

The planned changes to data protection law are only outlined in the coalition agreement. Unbureaucratic objection solutions are to replace consent requirements, small and medium-sized enterprises and associations are to be exempt from requirements – as long as they do not carry out critical uses.

The role of the state and federal data protection commissioners is to be rebalanced and the data protection conference is to be enshrined in law. "The aim" is also to bundle responsibilities with the Federal Data Protection Commissioner. "She should then be the Federal Commissioner for Data Use, Data Protection and Freedom of Information," the coalition agreement states.

Another project also goes in this direction: A "culture of data use and data sharing" is to be established. However, the agreement paper mainly contains declarations of intent that will be much more difficult to implement in reality than to write down.

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