“This is forced illegality!” News

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Mr. Strasser, what annoys you most about bureaucracy? The fact that every process that takes place here in the German Bundestag requires a form. I am not allowed to hang the picture myself, but I must fill out an application form to have someone come and hang the picture.

Your job is to reduce bureaucracy. How are you? I would say: better than I expected. When I took on this task, I didn’t jump around the office for joy. Despite all the efforts of previous governments, the achievements in this regard have not been outstanding. That’s why we didn’t start running away right away. First, we changed our method: in the past, only the government talked to itself about where it wanted to reduce bureaucracy. For the first time, we include people affected by this disease. The federal government specifically asked associations: where, from a practical point of view, should unnecessary bureaucracy be reduced? The result showed that we had hit the nail on the head: 442 suggestions were submitted within a few weeks, which we then assessed and weighed with the Federal Statistical Office. We have already implemented or are in the process of implementing 115 of them, and over 60 are under consideration. This shows that we take seriously what practice has shown us.

What exactly should be eliminated? For example, we raised the monetary thresholds for business size classes in accounting.

This means that specific financial ratios determine which legal requirements must be followed when conducting accounting. Exactly. Last week I was at a company in Ludwigsburg. This is a real relief for them as they employ over 100 employees. In total, we relieve the burden on almost 50,000 companies throughout Germany. For each company, this means on average approximately EUR 12,500 in relief and 105.65 hours less formalities per year. This shows that this change in method means that the reduction in bureaucracy is reflected in people’s everyday lives to a greater extent than before.

Many companies that you ask about this usually answer: Even if something is reduced on one side, something new is added on the other. I understand the skepticism, as in the past there have been big announcements and then little or nothing happening at all. But the truth is also this: there is no magic wand for bureaucracy. There will be no single law that will eliminate bureaucracy once and for all. Reducing bureaucracy is a continuous process. The first kilometers are already behind us. What we have decided in recent months will only be felt in the coming months. The Meseberg de-bureaucracy package, valid only in the summer, relieves German citizens of three billion euros a year – three times more than the largest package ever created in the history of reducing German bureaucracy.

Benjamin Strasser is Parliamentary Secretary of State at the Ministry of Justice and the Federal Government’s Coordinator for Better Regulation and Reducing Bureaucracy. He is a member of the FDP, and since 2017 a member of the Bundestag.

But that’s not enough. That’s why we think ahead. We are looking at, for example, digital employment contracts and public procurement law. We urgently need to obtain an electronic certificate of incapacity for work. Incidentally, this was a proposal included in the last law of the Grand Coalition on the fight against bureaucracy. In practice, however, this does not lead to less bureaucracy, but to more bureaucracy, because the structures of health insurance companies in Germany are not taken into account. We need to fix this urgently. Therefore, many further steps are necessary.

You have to take care of the smallest details. Does it annoy you that you don’t even have one big success to announce? Of course it would be better if there was a button you just press. And then everyone in Germany says: Great, now we have 20 years of peace. But this is unrealistic. Bureaucracy plays a role at various levels. On the one hand, it is about the image of humanity. If I trust citizens and believe in the power of the individual, I will legislate differently than if I assumed that the first thought of Germans when they get up is how they can continue to deceive the state. If I trust people to regulate their daily lives – also in the interests of the community – then I need less regulation. But of course not all political leaders have this worldview, otherwise some laws and regulations would not exist. But what levels you’re referring to is also important: the federal government can’t regulate everything on its own. States also need to be taken into account, especially when it comes to law enforcement. We are also the first federal government to engage the EU in cutting red tape. We no longer want to accept this excuse: “If everything comes from Brussels, we can’t do anything about it.” This is not true: as the federal government, we are involved in legislation in Brussels.

Even at traffic lights, you find it difficult to agree to the regulations you want to abolish. How is this supposed to work in the EU? We have launched an aid campaign in cooperation with France and are currently actively looking for partners in Europe so that after the European elections, the new Commission can reduce bureaucracy at the European level.

Recently, the federal government prevented the adoption of the European Supply Chain Act, among other reasons, because it was rejected by the FDP, of which you are also a member. This is also a necessary consequence: we counteract our national efforts to reduce bureaucracy if we simply wave against the monsters of bureaucracy at European level. This does not mean, however, that I am critical of Europe. I believe that active involvement in the legislative process is more pro-European.

The responses to the associations’ survey show that it is not easy to distinguish what constitutes a reduction of bureaucracy and where one simply wants to abolish laws. For example, it is proposed to weaken maternity leave and make working hours more flexible. A clear distinction needs to be made: what exactly is a reduction in bureaucracy and what is demanded for other reasons? But working hours are a pretty good example. My conclusion: no law in Germany is violated as often, consciously or unconsciously, as the German working time law. This shows that the law in this form clearly no longer corresponds to the realities of people’s lives in Germany and requires reform.

Bureaucracy is not only bad. Rules are needed. Do you have a favorite bureaucratic rule? Translated, bureaucracy means “rule by administration.” In a constitutional state, it is good for the administration to make decisions based on law and order. If this were not the case, we would live in an arbitrary state in which it is up to an individual official whether he or she receives a specific state benefit or not. I think we can all agree that we don’t want that, but there have to be certain procedures and legal bases. In this respect, I am of course glad that there are regulations in road traffic regulations and labor law. My goal is simply to get rid of excessive bureaucracy.

But where do you draw the line? What counts as exaggeration is a matter of interpretation. It becomes overkill when people no longer understand the rules and the administration and politicians themselves can no longer explain why the rules exist at all. Example of a baker from Hesse: an industry association came to his bakery and said: Smooth tiles pose a risk of accidents for workers. If flour, water and dough remnants land on them, you may slip. You need rough tiles so that nothing happens. So he laid rough tiles. Then a few weeks later the sanitary inspectorate came and, of course, said: For God’s sake, if this flour dust gets stuck and can’t be cleaned thoroughly, it will start to mold. This poses a health risk to people eating the rolls. You need to install smooth tiles. This is imposing illegality on you! No matter how you act, what you are doing is illegal. This weakens trust in the state. The state cannot solve and take on all life’s problems. It cannot establish justice in individual cases through laws.

What do you mean? We live in today’s society with a very different lifestyle. It’s not the 1950s anymore. The essence of the excessive bureaucracy we experience today is that for too long we have tried to write laws in such a way that they define every decision of the administration and citizens in the smallest detail and record every individual case. This can’t work. Not every individual case can and should be regulated by law.

During the corona pandemic, many things were implemented very quickly and unbureaucratically. For example, suddenly corona testing centers appeared everywhere. As it later turned out, many fraudsters used unbureaucratic invoicing. Is a trust-based view of humanity perhaps simply wrong? I would disagree with the idea that there was widespread fraud. But the big question is: If I over-regulate, will fraud no longer occur? Even in highly regulated areas, there will always be people who find a way to do it. I also have to ask myself who I am burdening with excessive regulation. If I impose an obligation on 99 people to prevent one case of fraud, this may not be the right approach from an economic point of view. If there was anything positive about Corona, it was that we saw what was possible digitally. We have experienced a real increase in digitalization. We have also made many of these things permanent, such as video hearings in civil proceedings.

So do we just have to accept that more errors will occur as a result of more general legislation? We definitely need a different error culture. How do we deal with mistakes among friends, mistakes of officials and politicians? We always immediately look for the person responsible for the problem. The problem is that it limits our courage to act. For administration to be efficient, we need executive power that is willing to make decisions. For many standards, officials who decide them have discretion. Why? Because we are not able to regulate every issue legally. On the ground, too often we see things thwarted when the idea is new or a little bolder. Of course, this involves the fear of making mistakes. In that case, I would rather reject the request if I have doubts than grant the request.

Mr. Strasser, one last question: Would it be permissible for members of the Bundestag to hang their own photos in their offices? Even though I studied law and didn’t choose a technical career, I think I could also hammer two nails into the wall. Perhaps we should raise this issue as an idea at the Bundestag’s Senior Council.