In a Bundestag debate, a member can ask for a Kurzintervention, a short intervention, after a speech. The rules of procedure limit it to two minutes. The speaker may then reply briefly once more. The rules name two purposes for which the president should grant it: to reject remarks made against one’s own person, and to correct one’s own remarks. Questions and remarks during a speech must be short and precise.
government
Two Kinds of Supervision
German administration separates two kinds of supervision. Dienstaufsicht covers an authority’s structure, internal order, general management and personnel. Fachaufsicht covers whether the authority carries out its tasks lawfully and appropriately. In North Rhine-Westphalia they can lie with different ministries. The Interior Ministry has Dienstaufsicht over the regional government offices. This does not touch the powers of the other ministries in their own fields. Instructions on the substance of a task come through Fachaufsicht.
One Ministry for Digital Affairs
In May 2025 the new federal government created the Federal Ministry for Digital Affairs and State Modernization. It received departments or responsibilities from six existing ministries and offices: the Chancellery and the ministries of the interior, transport and digital affairs, economy, finance and justice. It also received a right of approval over all essential IT spending in the direct federal administration. Security and tax administration are exempt. The aim, according to ZDF, is to speed up digitalization in Germany massively.
Diagnosis Without Prescription
Germany’s Council of Economic Experts, the Sachverständigenrat, was created by a law of 14 August 1963. Its task is to present the overall economic situation and its foreseeable development. The bill first foresaw a general ban on recommendations. Parliament softened it before the law passed, so the council may not recommend specific economic or social policy measures. Its job is diagnosis, and the choice of measures is left to politics. In 1978 the trade union journal Gewerkschaftliche Monatshefte accused the council of violating its legal mandate, and critics still say it regularly ignores the ban.
The Accident Commission
Under a federal administrative regulation, German road authorities work with an Unfallkommission, an accident commission. In North Rhine-Westphalia its permanent members are the road traffic authority, the road construction authority and the police. The commission must observe the development of road accidents continuously. When accidents cluster at one place within a set period, the place becomes an Unfallhäufungsstelle, an accident cluster spot. The commission then decides on measures to remove the factors that favor accidents. The measures must be suitable, appropriate and enforceable. Afterwards the commission checks whether they worked.
A Ministry Founded After Chernobyl
In the spring of 1986, environmental protection in the federal government was divided among the ministries of the interior, agriculture and health. The Chernobyl reactor disaster led to the founding of the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Reactor Safety on 6 June 1986. The ministry still exists, under changing names.
Bureaucracy, in Germans’ Own Eyes
In a YouGov survey for the German Press Agency, published in January 2026, 89 percent of adults in Germany named bureaucracy as typically German. Punctuality followed with 78 percent and diligence with 64 percent. Fifty-six percent named fear of change. In July 2026 a forsa survey for the civil service union dbb found that 79 percent of citizens think the state is overwhelmed by its tasks and problems. Only 17 percent trusted the state to solve its problems, a new low. Eighty-six percent said a clear reduction and simplification of official rules was important.
A Fourth Law Against Bureaucracy
On 18 October 2024 the Bundesrat approved the fourth Bureaucracy Relief Act, the Viertes Bürokratieentlastungsgesetz. Its changes reach everyday life. Accounting records must now be kept for eight years instead of ten. German citizens no longer have to fill in a registration form when they check into a hotel. Many transactions no longer need a handwritten signature. Justice Minister Marco Buschmann said the law would relieve the economy by almost one billion euros a year.
The Sailing Ship That Cost Thirteen Times as Much
In December 2015 the navy’s sail training ship Gorch Fock went into a complete overhaul. The repairs were first estimated at 10 million euros. The overhaul lasted until September 2021 and in the end cost 135 million euros. In March 2019 the Federal Court of Audit demanded a cap on the costs. In December 2018 allegations of corruption and breach of trust had been raised against the shipyard, which filed for insolvency on 20 February 2019.
Parliament’s Office for Consequences
Since 1990 the Office of Technology Assessment at the German Bundestag, the TAB, has advised parliament on scientific and technical change. The German word for its work is Technikfolgenabschätzung, the assessment of the consequences of technology. A committee of the Bundestag decides what the office studies. One of its reports examined what would happen in a large, long-lasting power blackout. It was presented to the Bundestag on 27 April 2011. The report found that all critical infrastructure would be affected and that a collapse of society as a whole could hardly be prevented. The consequences, it said, would equal a national catastrophe.