50 YEARS OF GERMAN DIGITALISATION: BETWEEN BROKEN PROMISES AND SEIZED OPPORTUNITIES
By Dominik Mohilo and Jan Bernecke, editors at the Munich-based PR and communications agency PR-COM
On 8 April 1981, the Federal Cabinet under Chancellor Helmut Schmidt decides to build a nationwide fibre optic network – the first tentative step towards modernising the network. The ambitious goal was to have fibre optic access in every building in Germany by 2015 – from prefabricated buildings in West Berlin to terraced houses in Saarland. 40 years after Schmidt, i.e. in 2021, the coalition renewed the promise in the coalition agreement: ‘Our goal for a modern Germany is clear: we want fibre to the home by 2030.’ Whether, on the 50th anniversary of Schmidt’s promise – and the numerous assurances made by all subsequent governments in the meantime – every German will really be able to access the internet via a fibre optic connection is currently rather questionable: in the target year of 2015, just 1.5 percent of households had such access. According to the Federal Network Agency, this figure is currently around 37 per cent. This may be formally correct, but Ralf Pütz, advisor to the Federal Government’s Fibre Optic Committee, assumes that a maximum of 10 percent are actively connected to the fibre optic network: This is because, although the requirements for a connection are met, the final expansion is rarely completed.
In recent decades, all governments have failed to press ahead with the expansion of fibre optics. However, the fibre optic situation is just one small piece of the mosaic in the German digitalisation dilemma. Another less praiseworthy example of how German digitalisation initiatives are lagging behind across the board is the topic of e-governance. Since 2014 at the latest, the abolition of analogue processes has been one of the goals of every single government. However, implementation has been sluggish – strictly in line with the well-known delay pattern of the numerous fibre optic targets that have been articulated. The online access law passed by the last Grand Coalition government did nothing to change this. According to Bitkom, no federal state currently has more than half of its administrative services available digitally. Meanwhile, the industry association has also compiled a more complex performance index for the federal states, according to which, however, things do not look any rosier: out of a possible 100 index points, no state scores more than 65, with the average being 50 points.
The situation is a little rosier, but by no means satisfactory, when it comes to the digitalisation of schools: According to the German School Barometer, around half of teachers were still dissatisfied with the technical equipment at their institutions in June 2023 and saw an urgent need to catch up. The reason for this is apparently administrative hurdles that are almost impossible to overcome when procuring and utilising funds from the DigitalPakt Schule. A similar verdict was reached by 56 per cent of the pupils surveyed by Bitkom shortly afterwards. The latter also criticised the poor or lack of Wi-Fi.
The list goes on and on. The PR-COM Research Lab’s overview of the digital promises of recent decades shows just how far. The extensive research has brought to light a number of shortcomings, but the reasons are – as is always the case in a political context – difficult to grasp. One huge and fundamental problem, however, is that digitalisation, despite its immense importance, is still being treated as a stepmotherly, almost ridiculously secondary issue and responsibility is consistently passed on: From the Postal Minister in 1981, it eventually travelled via many detours and ministries to the Ministry of Transport. This back and forth alone shows that no government has really understood the topic of ‘digital’ and digitalisation and has taken it with the seriousness that is urgently needed. While Kohl’s confusion of the motorway with the information superhighway still made us smile in 1994, Merkel’s iconic statement ‘The Internet is new territory for all of us’ could only make us feel ashamed almost 20 years later. Digitalisation has long been of such central importance for the economy and the progress, security and future viability of a country that the way it has been handled to date can be described as irresponsible to say the least: leaving it as an addendum to the Ministry of Transport effectively ensures that the topic of ‘digital’ will forever remain uncharted territory. However, digitalisation must no longer be a subordinate concept and must therefore – as Bitkom President Ralf Wintergerst is also calling for – finally be given its own federal ministry, in which all aspects from cyber security to network expansion converge.
Digital cannot remain within the Federal Ministry of Transport for this reason alone, as all areas of our lives are now inextricably interwoven with digital technologies. Accordingly, a stand-alone federal ministry must also be able to interact with all other ministries.
What Germany needs now is a real digital transformation – and finally binding promises that the government will honour. Pioneers such as Iceland and South Korea in terms of fibre optic expansion or Malta and Estonia in the area of e-governance show that digitalisation goals are achievable. As we have already missed the boat in international and European comparison, there must now at least be a serious race to catch up. Creating a separate Federal Ministry for Digital Affairs is the first step in this direction. On a positive note, (almost) all parties have this on their agenda for the upcoming election on 23 February.
A detailed graphical breakdown of the German governments’ digital promises can be found here.