Muqova rasmi Fotolia

March 2014

Three ministries will work together to plan and implement the Digital Agenda, which they hope the Federal Cabinet will adopt in summer 2014. Federal Minister of the Interior, Thomas de Maizière, and his colleagues Sigmar Gabriel, Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy, and Alexander Dobrindt, Federal Minister of Transport and Digital Infrastructure, spokeabout the government’s Digital Agenda to meet the challenges of the digital information age. The three ministers stressed that the measures called for in the plan will be coordinated effectively, and that all stakeholders will be involved in finalising and implementing the Digital Agenda and its seven main areas of action: digital infrastructure and the expansion of broadband; the digital economy; innovative government; digital society; research, education and culture; security, protection and trust for society and business; and the European and international dimension of the digital revolution.

TheIT Planning Council(IT-Planungsrat) sets its work priorities for 2014 at its spring meeting on the side-lines of the CeBIT in Hanover. Amongst other things it will engage with the Digital Agenda, which the new Federal Government has agreed in its coalition agreement. With the programme ‘Digital Government 2020’, with which the new government wants to promote eGovernment and modernise the administration, the IT Planning Council will propose actions from its federal point of view. These include, for example, ‘business-friendly administration’ and consistently simplified authority contacts (‘one-stop agency’).

The single phone number for contacting government authorities in Germany, 115, has now new channels. At CeBIT 2014, the first exhibition samples of the 115 application were presented. With this application, the potential use of the 115 number will be expanded beyond phone in the future. Although development is still at the beginning, the first step towards a multi-channel use of the 115 has been made.