The Bundestag passed the fourth Bureaucracy Relief Act by an overwhelming majority. According to estimates by the federal government, this will reduce the burden on citizens, administrations and companies by 3.5 billion euros annually. With this initiative, the parliament is, among other things, paving the way for the digital conclusion of employment contracts: In future, employers should be able to provide information about the essential conditions of their employment contracts in text form, i.e. by email. and make agreements on age limits. The previous requirement for a written form in the Evidence Act is no longer applicable. The Traffic Light Alliance agreed on this approach in March.
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Staff can be pushy Amendments from the Legal Affairs Committee However, with regard to the government draft, they still need written proof of their working conditions. Employers must then continue to provide them with information on paper. In general, the project aims to allow companies to digitalise processes in their HR administration. Only in economic sectors that are particularly threatened by undeclared work and illegal employment will providing proof in paper form remain mandatory.
“Using the text form saves printing costs: With an estimated printing time of 0.5 minutes and a pay rate of 23.60 euros, an annual relief of 1.7 million euros is possible for around 35.2 million employees here alone,” the government explains.
New process to reset PIN for online ID card
with Package The ID card also has an option for a “free” PIN reset and activation service (PRSD) for electronic identification (eID). The executive branch was forced to discontinue the service at the end of 2023 due to “unsustainable costs”. According to the resolution, it should be possible to change the six-digit secret number online.
According to the wishes of the lawmakers, the Federal Ministry of the Interior should be able to transfer sovereign powers “to carry out the function of resetting the requested PIN electronically” by “lending” these powers to legal entities under private law. The aim is to relieve the state through regulation and privatization. In the current case, according to the argument, “a certain flexibility” should be created around changing the PIN.
For citizens, the annual time saving due to the new online procedure should amount to around 105,000 hours. This is the result of the assumption that around 140,000 people have their PIN reset electronically each year. Compared to going to the office, 45 minutes could be saved per case. The coalition continues to estimate a cost of around 15 euros per reset – roughly the same as sending a new PIN by letter and the Postident procedure. The time saving compared to going to the authorities could amount to a saving of 1.10 euros.
“Drops in the Ocean”
Parliament also wants to use the law to reduce formal requirements in civil law, reduce retention requirements and abolish the hotel registration requirement for German citizens. In addition, a central database of tax advisers is to be introduced for powers of attorney in the field of social security. In the future, the authorities could also make tax assessments and other tax administration files available digitally.
In addition to the traffic light coalition, the CDU/CSU parliamentary group also voted for the revised draft. However, it said that these measures fell far short of what was possible and necessary. Conservatives also complained that the initially considered option to read passports digitally was canceled for data protection reasons. The Left, which voted against the initiative together with the BSW, described it as a drop in the ocean that would not lead to any significant reduction in costs.
Fighting “bureaucratic waste”
With this decision, Germany is initiating a change in the “bureaucratic waste”, Federal Justice Minister Marco Buschmann (FDP) stressed. But this is just one step that others – such as the annual bureaucracy relief law in 2025 – should follow. The IT association Bitkom is hoping for “less paper and more digital processes in human resources departments”. However, there were also some incomprehensible exceptions. The strict written form applies to contracts with interns, even though they “should not have any objections about using digital tools”.
The package must still go through the Federal Council. There could be trouble there. The obstacle: In future, tax and accounting documents only have to be kept for eight years instead of the previous ten. North Rhine-Westphalian Finance Minister Markus Optendrenck (CDU) saw this as a mistake. Tax evasion and crime can only be tackled effectively if all relevant data is available in full and on time. The shorter retention period should only apply to people and companies subject to the BaFin supervisory authority after a delay of one year. The reason given is that this ensures that ongoing investigations are not affected.
(Mac)
