Digital Ministry under construction: What is the status at the future department?

The boss is already a fire and flame. “In my ministry I experience a kind of start-up mentality-promising in the potential, ambitious in the goals and a team that has the will and willingness to change and shape something,” enthused Digital Minister Karsten Wildberger this week at the annual meeting of the CDU business council. It should be called. The country can look forward to my group.

Germany receives its own Digital Ministry. It is a step that many have been demanding for years – and which was long in coming. Finally a bundled force for everything that has to do with digitization, network infrastructure, AI and digital administration. Sounds good. Sounds modern. Sounds logical. But the implementation comes in more German steps.

Instead, let’s say, in a futuristic glass building between Cube and John-F.-Kennedy-Haus, the new ministry-under the direction of the political career changer Wildberger-initially moves into an existing building of the Federal Ministry of the Interior at the Berlin Salzuzer. An office block, no architectural world sensation. But hey: You have to start small. After all – in the long term, your own building could follow.

Reaching employees in the first week? Not so easy. Some email addresses have not yet been set up, one or the other link led into nowhere in the first few days. After all, according to Philipp Amthor, who acts as Wildberger’s new State Secretary for Digital and State Modernization, a fax equipment ban is to apply in the new authority. “We didn’t have any at all – and we do not intend to introduce any,” said Amthor im star– “5-minute talk”. Symbol policy? Perhaps. But a start.

A new Federal Ministry is not simply started with a large red button. The formal start takes place through a so -called organizational decree of the Federal Chancellor. In this it is determined which tasks the new house takes on – and which responsibilities for this must be removed from existing ministries.

What happens afterwards is organizational fine work: specialist departments are newly assigned, IT systems are adapted, positions. A lot of things that have happened in the interior, economic or transport ministry in terms of digitization now has now moved to the new Digital Ministry. This means that the staff also draws – partly by internal transfer, partly through new job advertisements. The Federal Administrative Office helps to set up the apparatus. This slowly becomes a functioning ministry from empty paper.

But of course: the first few months are more construction sites than everyday business. Rooms, processes, responsibilities – everything has to be found. Not to mention the actual work.

“The ‘Made in Germany’ has made us successful for a long time, brought us prosperity and growth. And I am convinced: A digital Next Germany can again develop such potential and such strength,” said Minister Wildberger at the CDU business council. How much power does his house have?

With 753 employees to be expected, the Federal Ministry of Digitization and State Modernization remains slim compared to other houses – also because it is created as part of the reduction in bureaucracy. The idea behind it: more agile, faster, more flexible. Instead of digital cacofony across several departments, a house is now to coordinate, bundle, drive forward.

Experts see the greatest advantage in the fact that with Wildberger someone now takes care of digitization who really wants to have the topic and has a clue. The biggest problem has been so far that neither minister nor staff were digital affin – even a Friedrich Merz was not. But the bundling under the career changer from Saturn not only brings opportunities, but also political explosive power.

Because many digital topics have so far been due to other departments. Bundling these skills also means: shift. And with that begins the classic Berlin competence tango. Who gives something? Who wants to keep influence? And how much authority does a small, new ministry really get to shape the “digital Next Germany” – as Wildberger puts it?

Another problem: Even if the ministry thinks visionarily, the actual decisions are often tough. There is often disagreement between countries, municipalities and federal authorities. The consequence: Submit projects, lack interfaces, data flow like honey – slow and sticky. So the great danger is that the ministry wants a lot but can enforce little.

Criticism is already coming from different corners. Some see a symbol without real power in the new house. Others complain that the removal of digital topics from other departments could result in new friction losses. And other questions: why only now?

In fact, the Gretchen question remains: Is the new Federal Ministry of Department a brave step into the digital future – or a political fig leaf that is supposed to conceal digital failures of the past decades?

The start is made. And even if the building is not yet futuristic and the first minister is not advised by a robot, it is good that digitization is now getting a clear address. Is that enough to digitally bring Germany forward? The answer does not even know the AI.