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From Nora Miethke & Gunnar Saft
Berlin/Dresden. Federal Minister of Justice Marco Buschmann has called on all federal states to do more to reduce bureaucratic regulations and has also taken a critical look at Saxony.
"The Free State is almost as big a producer of bureaucracy as the EU," said Buschmann on Tuesday in a panel discussion at the Friedrich Naumann Foundation in Dresden, which dealt with the topic of reducing bureaucracy under the motto "Less paper, more business!". According to the FDP politician, the biggest "producer of bureaucracy" is the European Commission. This is because it is far from keeping its "one in/one out" promise, i.e. for every new EU regulation, an old one would be removed in return. According to Buschmann, the true ratio is "one out/four in", i.e. for every regulation that is deleted, four are currently added.
However, it is not only Europe, but also the German federal states that continue to create more bureaucracy. "For Saxony, the "one out/three in" ratio applies and that means only slightly less growth than in Europe," says Buschmann.
Kretschmer: "Buschmann obviously doesn't know his way around Saxony very well"
However, the accusations directed at the Free State of Saxony are causing opposition in this country. "Federal Minister Buschmann obviously doesn't know his way around the federal state and especially the Free State of Saxony very well. I experience this with many federal ministers in the Scholz cabinet," explained Saxony's Minister President Michael Kretschmer (CDU) when asked. According to the head of government, almost every new state law and, above all, every new bureaucratic burden results from new laws, regulations or directives from the EU or the federal government. "We need to put an even stronger stop to this in future. What we need is a moratorium on bureaucracy at all levels. We must work together to reduce unnecessary bureaucracy and only allow new bureaucracy where it is absolutely necessary. This is the only way we can unleash Saxony's and Germany's potential."
The Saxon state government recently published figures in response to a parliamentary question from the AfD parliamentary group in the state parliament that suggest a completely different trend. According to these figures, the number of state-wide legal ordinances, administrative regulations and funding guidelines is actually decreasing - and with it the amount of bureaucracy. While the total number was still 1,386 three years ago, it has now fallen to 1,312, according to Justice Minister Katja Meier (Greens).
Although 123 new regulations have come into force this year, 148 have expired at the same time - an absolute decrease of 15 regulations. In the previous year, there were even 112 fewer regulations in Saxony. Minister Meier: "Saxony does not have to hide behind either the EU or the federal government. The opposite is the case." After significantly more regulations were abolished in 2023, a similar success is expected for 2024. "The one-in/one-out principle cited by Mr. Buschmann is even being overfulfilled in Saxony. I therefore consider his criticism of the Free State to be uninformed and unjustified."
Authorities suffer from "bureaucracy burnout"
When asked by SZ, the Federal Ministry again referred to the 2023 annual report of the Saxon Regulatory Control Council, which mentions a 1:3 ratio of financial relief to financial burdens due to changes in Saxon state law.
In the discussion round itself, the Federal Minister of Justice had pointed out that not only citizens and companies, but also the authorities would suffer from a "bureaucracy burnout".
"The over-bureaucratization in Germany is undermining the willingness to follow rules. And that is fatal," emphasized the FDP politician. His ministry is responsible for clearing the jungle of administrative regulations in the coalition government because, according to Buschmann, the red Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) and the green Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck are of the opinion that "a liberal would have more fun reducing bureaucracy".
According to him, half of the so-called compliance costs alone - i.e. the time and costs incurred by complying with legal requirements - are attributable to the EU. According to the statistics authority Destatis, the compliance costs for businesses increased by around 7.7 billion euros in 2022 alone. And the trend is still rising.
Buschmann calls for a results-oriented management culture
The minister also sees one reason for this in the culture of error, "we need to talk to the federal states about this". The crucial question is: should clerks make a hundred quick decisions or zero mistakes? "We need a results-oriented management culture in the public sector," the minister demands. There are no good or bad civil servants, only good or bad leadership.
And what is the traffic light government itself doing to reduce bureaucracy? Buschmann also had answers to this question. Via a digital survey, his ministry had received 441 suggestions for rules that the business community felt were superfluous. After a review, 380 proposals remained. Of these, 120 rules are now to be deleted via the Fourth Bureaucracy Reduction Act, which will reduce compliance costs by around three billion euros a year, Buschmann calculated to the audience.
Is that a lot or a little? Definitely more than before. Previous bureaucracy reduction laws would have saved an average of one billion euros in bureaucratic costs, now it is three times as much.
