E-Government

A digital public administration is crucial for providing citizens (especially in times of crisis) with effective access to administrative services. Political leaders in Germany agreed on this principle during the global COVID-19 pandemic. However, the implementation of the Online Access Act - the main German law on administrative digitalisation - and of the Single Digital Gateway Regulation (EU) 2018/1724 has raised considerable (legal) problems. This article therefore not only looks at the current implementation status of the two pieces of legislation, but in particular identifies three challenges for the digital transformation of public administration in Germany: federalism, legal fragmentation and register modernisation.

The digitalisation of the State and administration is a challenging generational task. The goal of many transformation efforts is a State functioning with digital technologies. For the efficient performance and completion of public tasks with digital solutions, convincing guiding images are needed that offer a valuable orientation framework with scope and perspectives. Despite some successes in Germany, the federal, State and local governments still face considerable challenges in implementing digitalisation. This became particularly obvious during the corona pandemic, when the weaknesses of insufficient digitalisation became noticeable in many areas and posed considerable problems for the economy and society. This contribution looks at the guiding images relevant to Germany and highlights successes, weaknesses and expectations up to now. With a view to concretising a digital European administrative space, there still is a need for numerous joint inter- and transdisciplinary efforts by partners from administration, science, business and civil society, which should not only be conceived and oriented regionally or nationally, but also at the European level from the very beginning.