Gastkommentar: Deutschland erstickt nicht an Krisen – sondern an Nachweisen
Bislang ist noch kein konsequenter Bürokratieabbau quer durch alle Ressorts erkennbar. Der Mindset muss sich aber überall und dauerhaft ändern, schreiben Lutz Goebel und Helena Melnikov.
Deutsche Unternehmen squander a considerable 7% of their annual turnover on reporting and documentation obligations, a figure that has risen to nearly 5% in 2022, according to the German Federal Bank. The cumulative direct bureaucratic costs amount to approximately 64 billion euros annually, with an estimated 146 billion euros in lost economic output.
Bureaucracy has become one of the main obstacles to growth, investment, and confidence in Germany, and it also represents a blockade that the state can most easily remove. Thus, hope remains pinned on Karsten Wildberger, the Federal Minister for Digital Affairs and State Modernization. At the second discharge cabinet in mid-July, he received backing for tangible reliefs for citizens and businesses.
What is urgently needed is evident, as a recent Forsa survey shows that trust in the state's ability to act has once again hit a low point. At the heart of the generally decided but still unfinished package lies a genuine paradigm shift: the reversal of the burden of proof. Until now, businesses had to justify why a duty was unnecessary.
In the future, the state must demonstrate why it still requires a reporting or documentation obligation. No duty should persist without a credible justification, with exceptions limited to legally binding EU and constitutional requirements. At least one in four existing obligations are expected to disappear within twelve months.
Written by urgent.news from Handelsblatt's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
