Scholz calls for 'pact' to speed up bureaucracy, modernize Germany

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Wednesday proposed a new "pact" between all levels of government to modernize the country, streamline the bureaucracy and speed up projects to improve the lives of citizens.
Scholz called on opposition politicians and local officials to join together to overcome a "stalemate" and create a more nimble government sector.
"We need a national show of strength. So let's join forces," Scholz, a Social Democrat, said in a speech to Germany's parliament during a debate on his coalition's proposed 2024 budget.
He said the pact should make Germany faster, more modern and safer: "Speed instead of standstill, action instead of sitting it out, cooperation instead of bickering. That is the order of the day!"
"Too much has been placed on the back burner in recent years," Scholz said, criticizing delayed infrastructure investments and bungled plans to digitize the country's slow-moving bureaucracy.
"The citizens are tired of this stalemate and so am I," he said, wearing a black eye patch over his right eye to cover injuries from a fall he suffered during a jogging accident over the weekend.
Construction approvals for new housing in particular should be accelerated and more government services shifted online to ease strain on the understaffed bureaucracy, he urged.
Scholz said that the "mildew of bureaucracy" is paralysing Germany's economy and "causes frustration among the people who simply want Germany to function properly: That the railways run on time, that [Germany's] infrastructure - analogue and digital - is among the best in Europe, that government agencies give you a helping hand and don't make things difficult."
Scholz touted major proposed investments in German national railway Deutsche Bahn, which has been plagued in recent years by chronic delays in its long-distance passenger service.
Germans have complained for years of an understaffed and slow-moving government bureaucracy that can sometimes make simple tasks - such as registering a new address after moving house - difficult and time-consuming. Politicians from different parties have for years pledged to address the problem.
Conservative opposition leader Friedrich Merz, the head of the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), sharply criticized Scholz's government at the start of Wednesday's debate.
Merz accused Scholz's Social Democrats of wanting to expand government control over families and children.
He told Scholz that the opposition bloc doesn't merely object to details of the budget plans, which would overhaul several key welfare programmes, but also fundamentally opposes Scholz's understanding of state power.
Merz argued that Germany should be shrinking the size of government and pursuing major tax reforms to help small and medium-sized businesses instead of expanding the welfare state.
"But they don't want to do that because, of course, in all their class warfare rhetoric, they only ever talk about the rich and the broad shoulders that they think they have to carry even greater burdens," Merz shouted to applause from his own ranks.
Merz also accused Scholz's government of failing to live up to their promises to reinvest in defence made in the aftermath of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Merz's party colleague and North Rhine Westphalian Premier Hendrik Wüst spoke of a "PR stunt." "Frankly speaking, I feel like I'm being made fun of," Wüst told the Rheinische Post local newspaper. He said Scholz's pact included projects that were already in the pipeline and that the federal states had been demanding for a long time.
In recent weeks, the coalition of Scholz's centre-lect Social Democratic Party (SPD), the Greens and the the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) has had huge rows, especially over the heating law and the basic child allowance.
In surveys, more than two thirds of Germans are now dissatisfied with the work of the government. The British magazine The Economist recently even asked whether Germany was once again "the sick man of Europe."
Last week, the government had already tried to turn the tide by presenting a 10-point plan for the economy. The "Germany Pact" is now the second attempt to move beyond the defensive.
The second half of the German coalition's legislative period now has a new buzzword. While in the first two years there was the famous "Zeitenwende," or turning point, after the Russian attack on Ukraine that brought about a paradigm shift in German foreign and security policy, now it is the "Germany Pact."
From now until the 2025 elections, it seems the main issue will be how Germany repositions itself domestically.