The Federal Council did not approve the amendment to the Online Access Act (OZG) on Friday, although the federal government wanted to accommodate the states at the last minute. The traffic light coalition's prestige project cannot initially come into force.
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For the time being, citizens do not have any legal right to digital services from the federal government, which should take effect from 2029 with the exception of claims for damages and compensation. Likewise, there will be no uniform digital citizen account with which users can identify themselves and submit applications – probably on the basis of their federal ID.
The federal government doesn't want to pay
The Interior Committee of the State Chamber criticized the fact that the federal government was withdrawing almost completely from financing administrative digitalization at the expense of the states and municipalities. The federal government sets legal requirements without quantifying the resulting follow-up costs with sufficient precision. The established registration process via the electronic tax portal Elster with more than 20 million users should not be replaced by other systems without necessity.
The Interior Committee had actually advocated fundamentally revising the OZG reform in the Mediation Committee. But especially the countries affiliated to the CDU/CSU did not want to know anything about this mediation option. The Union parliamentary group in the Bundestag previously also called for more commitment “in order to continue the digitalization of administration with sufficient dynamism and priority”.
In order to approve the OZG, the Federal Government had offered the Federal Council the assurance that all standards would only be adopted in agreement with the states in the IT Planning Council and that Elster would be retained permanently as an identification or authentication mechanism. At the same time, a state secretary from the Federal Ministry of the Interior (BMI) made it clear that, given the strained budget situation, there would be no more money from the federal government.
Faeser: CDU and CSU are slowing down
Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) described it as “very regrettable that the Union-led states in the Bundesrat did not agree to OZG 2.0 today”. In doing so, they “stopped the further digitalization and modernization of our state” and acted “clearly against the interests of their own communities” and those of citizens and companies. Faeser now wants to suggest to the Federal Cabinet that they in turn call the Mediation Committee. She is ready to continue negotiating constructively “because our country needs more digital progress.”
The OZG 2.0, which was passed by the Bundestag on February 23rd, is actually intended to consolidate the structures of federal-state cooperation and to enable simple, modern and digital processing of procedures in the comprehensive portal network. To this end, the federal government wants to provide central basic services and thus replace state-owned developments for citizens' accounts and mailboxes.
(vbr)