In the budget debate of 6 September 2023, Chancellor Olaf Scholz offered the sixteen state premiers and the opposition leader Friedrich Merz a Deutschland-Pakt, a pact for Germany. Its purpose, he said, was to den Mehltau aus Bürokratismus, Risikoscheu und Verzagtheit abschütteln, shake off the mildew of bureaucracy, fear of risk and timidity. He called for Tempo statt Stillstand, Handeln statt Aussitzen, speed instead of standstill, action instead of waiting things out. One of his examples was concrete: „Schneller“ heißt, dass alle 16 Länder bis Ende des Jahres Bauanträge auch digital annehmen. (Faster means that all sixteen states accept building applications digitally as well by the end of the year.)
We Ask About the Risks First
In May 2025, Germany created a new federal ministry for digital affairs and state modernization. Its minister is Karsten Wildberger, the former head of the electronics retailer MediaMarktSaturn. In a dpa interview in January 2026, he described the national habit: Wir stellen oft zuerst die Frage nach den Risiken. (We often ask about the risks first.) He said he wished Germany would rediscover the enthusiasm for the new and for technology that had always defined it. In the same interview he spoke about the coming digital ID on the phone. He said he would keep his physical ID card: Es ist immer gut, noch ein Backup zu haben. (It is always good to have a backup.)
Three in Four Companies Still Fax
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.
In Their Own Responsibility
The school law of North Rhine-Westphalia describes the teacher’s freedom and its frame in one sentence. Teachers teach, educate, advise, assess and supervise their students in eigener Verantwortung, on their own responsibility, im Rahmen, within the framework, of the educational goals, the applicable laws and regulations, the orders of the school authorities and the decisions of the school’s conferences. In Hesse, the principal may intervene in the teaching of a fully trained teacher only when a rule has been broken. After the shock of the first PISA study in 2000, the states committed to applying national educational standards from the 2004–05 school year. The standards fix what students must be able to do at the end. They are meant to give schools and teachers greater freedom in choosing and arranging the content.
The Weekly Plan
The Wochenplan, a weekly plan, is a common method in German primary schools. The teacher sets a fixed amount of compulsory and optional tasks for the week. The children decide for themselves when to do them, in what order, and whether alone or with others. The method comes from reform education. It spread through German primary schools from the late 1970s as a way to teach children to direct their own work.
Freedom Within Limits
The Bavarian State Ministry for Family, Labor and Social Affairs gives parents of preschool children a brochure called Freiheit in Grenzen, freedom within limits. The name comes from a parenting program of the same name by the Munich psychologist Klaus A. Schneewind. The brochure sets out three principles. The first is to value the child as a person in every situation. The second is Fordern und klare Grenzen setzen, to make demands and set clear limits. The third is Die Eigenständigkeit des Kindes fördern und das Kind in den gesetzten Grenzen bewusst gewähren lassen, to support the child’s independence and to deliberately let the child act freely within the limits that have been set.