In 2024, 77 percent of German companies with twenty or more employees still used the fax machine, and a quarter used it often or very often. In 2018, the figure had been 95 percent. The trade association Bitkom asked them why. Fifty-six percent said they could not avoid it when dealing with government offices. Thirty-five percent named their established fax processes that work well, and 27 percent said habit. Bitkom commented that the change was happening erstaunlich langsam, surprisingly slowly. In November 2023, the budget committee of the Bundestag ordered all fax machines out of the parliament buildings by 30 June 2024. They are gone. The Bundestag still has a fax number for citizens, and incoming faxes are now digitized.
The Health Offices and the Fax
In January 2021, Chancellor Angela Merkel and the state premiers declared it erforderlich, necessary, that every health office use the contact tracing software SORMAS by the end of February. The German County Association replied to the health minister that only about 80 health offices were using it, and that it considered the goal weder für erstrebenswert, noch derzeit erreichbar, neither desirable nor achievable at present. The association wrote that health offices had been forced to communicate with the Robert Koch Institute by fax. A government report to a Bundestag committee in February 2021 gave a higher figure, 202 of 376 health offices. The two figures come from different sources and dates. According to the health ministry, the federal government could only play a supporting role, because the decision lies with the states and the health offices.
The Online Access Act
The Onlinezugangsgesetz, the Online Access Act of 14 August 2017, required the federal and state governments to offer their administrative services online by the end of 2022 at the latest. More than 6,000 services were grouped into 575 packages. In August 2023, eight months after the deadline, 127 of the 575 were available across the whole country. In 2022, the Federal Court of Audit criticized the responsible ministry for having glossed over the progress in its reports. A second law, OZG 2.0, came into force on 24 July 2024. It set a new deadline. Services for business are now to be fully digital by 2028.
The Digital Pact for Schools
In 2019, the federal government launched the DigitalPakt Schule to equip schools with digital technology. In the end, 6.5 billion euros in federal money were available. By 30 June 2021, schools had drawn 852 million euros. The municipalities named the reasons: too few staff in the administration, applications that were too complicated, and supply problems. One percent named a lack of interest from schools. By June 2024, at the end of the program, 97 percent of the basic fund had been approved, and 3.4 billion euros had been paid out.
The Patient Record Nobody Asked For
From 1 January 2021, everyone with statutory health insurance could ask their insurer for an electronic patient record, the elektronische Patientenakte. By the end of June 2023, about one percent had one. The government then changed the default. A law with the name Gesetz zur Beschleunigung der Digitalisierung des Gesundheitswesens, the Act to Accelerate the Digitalization of Health Care, made the record automatic. Since 15 January 2025, every insured person receives one unless they object.
Not a Single Euro
On 27 February 2022, three days after Russia invaded Ukraine, Chancellor Olaf Scholz told the Bundestag that Europe was living through a Zeitenwende, a turning point in history. He announced a special fund of 100 billion euros for the armed forces. Zeitenwende became the German word of the year. On 14 March 2023, the day she presented her report for 2022, the parliamentary commissioner for the armed forces, Eva Högl, said in an interview: Aber von den 100 Milliarden ist im Jahr 2022 noch gar kein Euro und Cent bei der Bundeswehr angekommen. (But of the 100 billion, not a single euro or cent reached the Bundeswehr in 2022.) She added: Es dauert alles viel zu lange. (Everything takes far too long.)