The new German DOGE?!

It had to happen quickly: The woman and the three men who, at the suggestion of the Federal President, were supposed to present proposals for a reform of the state by autumn, were summoned to Berlin ad hoc. The reason was the coalition negotiations between the CDU/CSU and the SPD , which began on Thursday . "The Initiative for a Capable State," the somewhat cumbersome name of the group of four, presented its interim report on Wednesday. They had discussed it with the exploratory teams on Wednesday. The new government intends to take up as many of the 30 recommendations as possible. The goal: comprehensive state reform.

"It's a quarter past twelve. We're under massive pressure," believes Andreas Voßkuhle, a former judge at the Federal Constitutional Court and one of the initiators. "If citizens don't experience the state as capable of taking action, they'll turn away from democracy," he warned at the Berlin federal press conference. Together with manager Julia Jäkel and former federal ministers Thomas de Maizière (CDU) and Peer Steinbrück (SPD), he peered "into the engine room of the state" and developed proposals to make the state leaner, more efficient, and closer to citizens. The tenor: fewer reporting requirements and more trust in the people.

The number of ministries is to be reduced and responsibilities are to be consolidated. Instead of five ministries coordinating 170 social benefits, there should be one. And three groups of benefit recipients: children and young people, adults, and households. Benefits should be paid as flat-rate as possible. To what extent it reflects reality if a 15-year-old is treated the same as a 5-year-old is certainly debatable. But the traffic light coalition has already failed on a simple basic child benefit, so this proposal will probably never be implemented either.

The recommendation to establish a Ministry for Digitalization and Administration has better prospects. The CDU/CSU has already committed to this, while another is to be abolished. It is unlikely that this Digital Ministry will also be given responsibility for the personnel of all other ministries, as the initiative recommends.

Federal government should deport centrally

The initiative also sees the need to allocate important competencies to the federal government, especially for security and threat prevention. Cyber ​​defense should be the sole responsibility of the federal government. A National Security Council, also a demand of the CDU, should act as a permanent interdepartmental body to coordinate security policy.

The initiators also want more federal intervention in migration policy. They recommend that responsibility for deportations should lie centrally with the federal government in the future. In return, the states should be responsible for integration measures and language courses.

The proposal to reorganize responsibilities between the federal government, states, and municipalities and adjust funding accordingly is logical. However, two federalism commissions in the past have not produced particularly positive results. Consider the so-called ban on cooperation, which placed responsibility for schools and universities in the hands of the states and prohibited any federal interference.

When it comes to education, the quartet makes proposals that aren't exactly new. The last grand coalition under Angela Merkel already botched a National Education Council . And the demand to increase basic funding for universities so they no longer have to invest so many resources in acquiring third-party funding—according to the report "Main Drivers of Bureaucratization in the Academic System"—can only be considered a plea, given the chronically tight state budgets.

But the quartet is confident that a major breakthrough can now be achieved. They sensed a great deal of openness in their discussions with the exploratory panel.

However, these deviate from the first recommendation. Fewer, but better laws, and more consultation time are needed, the quartet recommends. The opposite is happening: Starting Thursday, three constitutional amendments to circumvent and reform the debt brake are to be discussed in an expedited procedure and with the existing majority of the Bundestag. Voßkuhle declined to comment on the specific case, saying only: "Quick fixes are rarely appropriate." The final report is expected to be presented on July 11.