At their top meeting, the federal and state governments decided on a comprehensive package to accelerate planning and approval. The agreement provides for “fundamental changes” to accelerate projects in the areas of construction, energy and transport, praises Chancellor Scholz.
More speed in the construction of power lines, apartments or traffic routes: At their top meeting in the Berlin Chancellery on Monday, the federal and state governments decided on a comprehensive package to accelerate planning and approvals. Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) said that the planned de-bureaucratization was a first in Germany “on these dimensions”. In the evening, the federal-state meeting focused on the course in migration policy. Difficult conversations were expected here.
The federal and state governments agreed on a 28-page “pact for accelerating planning, approval and implementation”. It should help ensure that “Germany as a business location remains competitive,” it says in the resolution. The first results should be available “in the first quarter of 2024”.
The pact provides for “fundamental changes” in order to implement projects more quickly in the areas of construction, energy and transport, for example, said Scholz after the first round of consultations at the meeting with the state prime ministers. The package includes “probably a hundred individual regulations” that would speed things up “in many areas of daily life”.
Hesse’s Prime Minister Boris Rhein (CDU), the chairman of the Prime Minister’s Conference, spoke of a “good move and an important step”. Lower Saxony’s Prime Minister Stephan Weil (SPD) said: “This decision really has substance.”
Much praise for the new acceleration pact from the federal and state governments
The package provides for faster and less bureaucratic implementation of projects in areas such as digitalization, renewable energies, mobile communications, rail infrastructure and housing. Essentially, the aim is to reduce the testing steps in approval procedures in these areas and to standardize procedures nationwide.
The agreement represents a move away from ever-increasing bureaucratization, said Chancellor Scholz. Over the past decades, Germany has invented more and more regulations “with great love and affection.” The Chancellor said he was “glad” that this was now over
The federal and state governments launched the pact during their talks in June. At that time, Scholz campaigned for a “Germany pace” in order to keep up with the international community. On Monday, he again pointed to the accelerated establishment of liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals since last year to replace lost Russian gas deliveries as a model.
Union parliamentary group leader Friedrich Merz (CDU) praised the agreement, but saw the states and not Scholz as the driving force behind it. “It’s good that the federal states have maintained the pressure to accelerate planning and have prevailed,” he told the editorial network Germany. “After the paper for faster procedures sat in the Chancellery for almost half a year, apparently unprocessed, laws now have to be written quickly and be adopted.” Scholz must ensure “that the FDP and the Greens do not slow down again.”
Olaf Scholz announces further simplifications
The Regulatory Control Council (NKR), an independent advisory body to the federal government, welcomed the agreement as “overdue”. NKR chairman Lutz Goebel emphasized that it was good that Scholz had declared the issue “a top priority”. However, the pact could only be the start of “a challenging implementation process”. “Binding schedules with clear milestones” are now needed.
Scholz has already announced further simplifications. He mentioned healthcare. “This will be the second big step,” he said. This is about the digitization of health data, the reform of the hospital landscape and the goal of maintaining Germany as a pharmaceutical location.
The pact to accelerate planning was already largely agreed upon in advance, which is why no major discussion was expected in the Chancellery. Things looked completely different when it came to the migration issue: Here, even the countries did not agree with each other in their preliminary discussions on Monday, which is why the meeting with Scholz only began three hours late. The reason was a dispute between the SPD and the Union-led countries, which was primarily sparked by the Union’s demand for asylum procedures in third countries outside the EU.
Source: Stern
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