2023-08-30 19:17:26
Berlin Abolition of the hotel registration requirement, digital cancellation, shortened retention periods for booking receipts – the federal government decided on Wednesday at its retreat in Meseberg, Brandenburg, key points for the reduction of bureaucratic hurdles. The paper with the relief proposals, which the Handelsblatt had previously reported on, comes from Federal Justice Minister Marco Buschmann.
The FDP politician said in Meseberg: “We are convinced that many companies in Germany are suffering from bureaucratic burnout”. The planned measures for citizens, business and administration would save 2.3 billion euros a year. “In the future, paper will also be thrown away more quickly in companies,” said Buschmann. A concrete draft for a Bureaucracy Relief Act (BEG) is to be presented before the end of the year.
Buschmann’s current plans are based on proposals from the respective federal ministries and an online survey of associations that submitted 442 proposals for reducing bureaucracy. They comprise a good 600 pages.
Specifically, the key points provide, for example, that the commercial and tax law retention periods for accounting documents will be reduced from ten to eight years. This simplifies the tax return. In the future, hotels should no longer have to fill out a registration form for each individual guest. Germans are exempt from the hotel registration requirement. The prescribed records of allergens, additives and flavorings in foods sold in bulk should no longer have to be in writing with the seller in the future. A recording in digital form is then sufficient.
Digital technologies should also be able to be used for civil law needs. In the future it should be possible, for example, to photograph a written termination of a tenancy with a smartphone and to send this electronic copy to the recipient of the declaration.
Big hit or just small-small?
But what good is the current advance? Can a big hit succeed, or in the end only a small-small result, as the economy had criticized with the previous three laws?
Bureaucracy experts have analyzed the key points for the Handelsblatt:
Klaus-Heiner Röhl from the Cologne Institute for Economic Research (IW) thinks it is “in principle positive” that the reduction of crippling bureaucracy is now moving more into the focus of federal politics. However, with a view to the legislative period, the enthusiasm comes quite late: “In just over a year, the election campaign should begin and make implementation in critical areas such as labor law impossible.”
In the area of burdensome bureaucracy for companies, “only manageable progress” can be seen: “The most significant here is the reduction in commercial and tax law retention periods for accounting documents from ten to eight years, which generally relieves the corporate sector.”
However, many of the measures affecting the corporate sector are only relevant for very few companies, such as the elimination of the obligation to apply for ships from outside the EU sailing between German seaports.
>> Read here: Ampel plans sweeping action to reduce bureaucracy
The IW expert expressly endorses the fact that the government proposals rely to a large extent on greater use of digital solutions. This means, for example, the planned waiver of the written form requirement in various areas, such as the termination of leases. The digital function of the passport should also be able to be used for air travel in the future and speed up the controls.
However, Röhl criticizes that an online start-up with identification, for example via the digital ID card, as is already possible in Austria or Denmark, is still only “desired” according to the key issues paper.
In addition, it seems “contradictory” in this context that federal funds for administrative digitization have recently been reduced as part of the Online Access Act (OZG) and that there are no longer any concrete timetables for further digitization of the administration.
Reducing bureaucracy should save more than two billion euros a year
Jörg Bogumil, political and administrative scientist at the Ruhr University in Bochum, recognizes some measures in Buschmann’s paper that “could bring really significant progress”, such as the planned abolition of information obligations for the economy.
“hodgepodge of suggestions”
The abolition of the hotel registration requirement is “a very good step”. However, it is not yet clear which other information obligations would be taken into account. Even with the “extremely obstructive” procurement law, it remains unclear in which direction reforms should go.
However, the administrative scientist also finds phrases in the “hodgepodge of suggestions”, for example in the case of citizen’s income. It says that the new law has made services and benefits more accessible. “But that’s not true at all,” explains Bogumil. “In terms of the application and the obligation to provide proof, nothing has changed.”
While the Bochum bureaucracy expert sees it positively that practical checks are to be carried out in the future, for example for company start-ups, IW expert Röhl points out that such checks already exist in the Ministry of Economics for planning and approval procedures, “with weak results so far”.
In some cases, practice checks planned together with business associations are repeatedly postponed, with reference to staff shortages in the ministry, reports Röhl.
In any case, the IW expert is skeptical about the speeding up of planning and approval procedures mentioned in the key issues paper. Because the specific projects relate essentially to the expansion of renewable energies such as photovoltaic systems, wind power plants and the use of geothermal energy.
Röhl says: “A continuous acceleration for the approval of industrial projects can probably not be achieved with the measures planned so far.”
All experts praised the initiative to reduce bureaucracy at EU level, which is to be initiated together with France. However, IW expert Röhl considers it problematic that the Commission under Ursula von der Leyen initiated various bureaucratic projects such as the Supply Chain Act and the more extensive sustainability reporting itself.
>> Read here: Interview with Stefan Messer: “There are politicians with little experience in power”
“The requirement for comprehensive company timekeeping is also derived from European law,” stressed economist Röhl. “It remains to be seen to what extent there is a willingness to change course.”
Economy: Decisions somewhat fragmented
Modest approval came from the economy on Wednesday. Employer President Rainer Dulger warned that the government must now also deliver: “Otherwise Germany as a business location is in serious danger.”
Long lines in front of offices
The planned measures for citizens, business and administration would save 2.3 billion euros a year.
(Photo: dpa)
The employers’ association Gesamtmetall welcomes the “entry” into reducing bureaucracy. “This gives hope that the federal government has finally recognized the seriousness of the situation,” explained Gesamtmetall President Stefan Wolf, but criticized: “In view of the challenges, the resolutions seem a bit fragmented at first glance.”
The President of the Association of Family Entrepreneurs, Marie-Christine Ostermann, spoke of lip service. She referred to the supply chain law, which obliges companies above a certain size to exclude child labor or serious environmental violations in the manufacture of their products. You need to create reports to do this.
Critical tones came from the opposition. “Mere cornerstones for reducing bureaucracy help neither the economy nor the citizens,” said the legal policy spokesman for the Union faction, Günter Krings (CDU). So far, Ministers Buschmann and Habeck would only announce such projects.
“In practical legislation, however, they do exactly the opposite and keep introducing new traffic light laws as bureaucracy monsters,” said Krings. The traffic light policy would put an additional massive burden on the economy and citizens in economically difficult times – as with the heating law as an example of a planned economy energy policy.
Marco Buschmann
Buschmann’s current plans are based on proposals from the respective federal ministries and an online survey of associations that submitted 442 proposals for reducing bureaucracy.
(Photo: IMAGO/dts news agency)
Head of the National Regulatory Control Council (NKR) Lutz Goebel, Germany’s watchdog for reducing bureaucracy, called for “simple and practical” laws on Wednesday. “If our laws become so complicated that they can no longer be implemented, nobody will be helped,” said the chairman of the independent control and advisory body of the federal government.
>> Read here: How is Germany getting out of the growth trap?
Administrative processes are taking longer and longer, authorities are overburdened and court proceedings are dragging on. The confidence of the citizens in politics, state and administration decreases from year to year. “Reducing bureaucracy is therefore also a contribution to securing democracy,” explained the NKR boss.
Bureaucracy expert Bogumil even sees the level of administration “completely excluded” in the key issues paper. He criticizes that the employees in the authorities are far too safety-oriented and have too much legal training: “The paragraph riders check everything and everything and thus make the process itself complicated.” That is an important reason for too much bureaucracy. Here, too, we have to start: “A complete change in mentality is necessary.”
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