Bitkom: “Digital Pact Germany” proposed

“A consistent digitalization of companies, infrastructures and administrations will have enormous effects for more competitiveness and productivity, for international market success and technological independence,” says Bitkom President Dr Ralf Wintergerst.

The “Digital Pact Germany” provides for concrete investments of the targeted 100 billion euros in four areas: Digital transformation of the economy, building a so-called Germany Stack by promoting key technologies and infrastructures, administrative digitization and digital education. From Bitkom’s point of view, the entire special fund must be spent responsibly. “Each individual measure must be of an investment nature and must be accompanied by a return on investment. The money must not create a flash in the pan. It must have sustainable effects so that future generations can use it to finance debt servicing,” emphasizes Wintergerst.

In detail, the “Digital Pact Germany” provides for a total of 35 billion euros for the transformation of the economy, including around 20 billion euros for a transformation bonus in the form of special depreciation of 175% on digital goods. Further investments are planned for the digital transport infrastructure (EUR 1.5 billion), digital hospitals (EUR 5 billion) and a digital voucher for small and medium-sized enterprises (EUR 0.5 billion). At 50 billion euros, most of the funding for the “Digital Pact Germany” has been earmarked for key technologies. Specifically, the development of a Germany Stack is proposed, i.e. key digital technologies and infrastructures that improve Germany’s position on global markets on the one hand and strengthen its technological independence on the other. The expansion of chip production and support for chip design and innovation are important for this – at a total cost of 10 billion euros. 9 billion is needed to build a sovereign and independent German quantum data center infrastructure and a total of €10 billion to promote artificial intelligence. Sovereign cloud technologies and the associated infrastructure in Germany are estimated to cost a further 10 billion euros. Bitkom President Wintergerst: “Strengthening our digital sovereignty will determine our future competitiveness and resilience and therefore our prosperity and security. Our digital sovereignty is decisive in determining whether we are geopolitically capable of acting or whether we remain vulnerable to blackmail.”

The Bitkom proposals earmark 10 billion euros for the digitization of administration. In addition to modernizing the register landscape and linking it across all federal levels (2.2 billion euros), Bitkom also believes that a modern cloud infrastructure is needed for the federal, state and local governments (6 billion euros). Finally, with a further 5 billion euros, the education sector could catch up digitally with the pioneering nations. To this end, a digital education qualification fund for teaching staff should be set up (2.3 billion euros) and a digital offensive for daycare centers and universities should be launched (1 billion euros). Bitkom also attaches great importance to the establishment of a “Federal Center for Digital Education” (300 million euros). The complete catalog of individual measures, including the necessary investments, can be downloaded here from today.

Wintergerst: “Solving Germany’s structural problems is just as important as financial investments. Overregulation, excessive bureaucracy, slow administrations, inflexible working conditions, excessive reporting requirements – to change all of this, we need little or no money, we need political will and the willingness to tackle and change things.” Above all, it must be ensured that the additional funds arrive quickly and easily where they are needed. “A combination of additional public investment and a low-bureaucracy framework that encourages private investment can turn Germany into a digitally sovereign, future-proof country.”

– – – – – –

Further links

👉 www.bitkom.org 

Photo: pixabay