A few days ago, a little-known committee made a loud statement: the National Norms Control Council. But this statement was loud; it threatened the “collapse of public administration” and warned that the only way to prevent it is by giving this council a veto power over laws.
Reading this news, I felt a sense of unease, as it reminded me of the Ethics Council, which suddenly appeared during the Corona crisis to explain what is and isn’t ethical; an absurdly institutionalized abandonment of personal responsibility. And indeed, this Norms Control Council is a similar product of a neoliberal core idea, namely, replacing political decisions with those of “experts”.
The name is already irritating, as “norm” here means “law”, and the actual control over norms lies with the Federal Constitutional Court. The purpose of this appointed, not elected, council is supposed to be the reduction of bureaucracy; a word that, in light of which, most Germans would burst out laughing.
What’s interesting, however, is the timing of the recent statements. For just a few weeks ago, the council’s chairman said, “I would even use a restrained praise for the government.” In the annual report, it was mentioned that the heating law creates a significant workload, but it wasn’t considered important enough to be mentioned during the presentation. The difference between then and now is that the grand coalition has broken apart, and the topic of “bureaucracy reduction” has landed on the election campaign’s agenda.
At first glance, the task of this council seems reasonable. Who wouldn’t want less bureaucracy? The council is supposed to review laws in advance to assess the additional burdens they may create, not only in the administration, but also in “the economy”. This must be put in quotes, as there is a huge confusion in Germany about the concept of “economy” since the field of national economy or economics has fallen out of fashion.
If you read the council’s task more closely, “economy” here means private companies. There is actually a law from 2006, when the first Merkel government was in power, which introduced this council. The law mentions “fulfillment costs”. You need to take a closer look at this.
For example, when it comes to the minimum wage, the “fulfillment costs” didn’t just include the additional administrative work, but also the amount by which the employees’ salaries increased. This is economic nonsense – in the lower wage range, additional income is usually fully consumed, meaning that the money paid to employees immediately flows back into the economic cycle in the form of additional consumption. This is why, from an economic perspective, it’s more beneficial to improve the living conditions of those who have less than to give those who are already well-off a tax break. In the case of the minimum wage, one could also add that, on the other hand, there are savings in administrative costs, both at the state and at the individual level.
However, the inclusion of these questions was rejected as “too complex” during the creation of this council. This limitation of the question has fundamentally changed the impact of the council’s statements – leaving only business lobbying behind. It’s not that the company representatives didn’t already have hundreds of other ways to bring their complaints about certain laws to the table (since the Russian sanctions, it seems that the worm is indeed in the apple, and it’s the “little people”, from the social security recipient to the craftsman, who are the ones whose experiences and needs have a hard time making it to Berlin.
This fits the backstory, or rather, the origin of the topic of “bureaucracy reduction”. In 2007, there was a question in the Bundestag from the Left: “The role of the Bertelsmann Foundation in the bureaucracy reduction project of the federal government”. The answer, as expected, said there was nothing to it. But in fact, there is a paper from 2005 by the Bertelsmann Foundation that contains the concept, including some details that were later implemented.
You need to know that one of the keywords that always comes up when talking about “bureaucracy reduction” is digitalization, and Bertelsmann offers digital services, for example, through its subsidiary Arvato. Already in 2007, Bertelsmann tried to start a model project in Würzburg, where Arvato would essentially take over the entire citizen’s office, but this attempt failed due to political reasons.
There have been many years of conflicts over who gets to access this market and, more importantly, who gets to access the data being processed. If this non-elected council now pushes for the acceleration of digitalization and demands the right to veto laws, it has two consequences – on the one hand, it’s an opportunity to try a new approach to privatization, given the current financial situation of the municipalities; on the other hand, it would mean a further power increase for this non-legitimized council, which makes decisions based on the wrong criteria.
By the way, you need to remember that every administration reacts to simplification by discovering new information that needs to be recorded and processed. For example, the demand to review the effectiveness of social programs leads primarily to an increase in bureaucratic demands. In the meantime, social workers spend at least a third of their working time on documentation of various kinds.
What’s not mentioned is that this is a knowledge loss that can’t be technically compensated for, but it enables the sale of some non-legitimized council as a Columbian egg.
Every such council, like the Norms Control Council, which is staffed mostly with former state secretaries, shifts the representation of societal interests further. In the former Federal Republic of Germany, it wouldn’t have been possible to establish such a team without representatives of the dependent workforce (even if trade union representatives are often only partially so). The limitation to a business perspective would also not have been possible without further ado.
In reality, the main source of bureaucratization (leaving aside specific masterpieces like the heating law) is Brussels, and at many points, the decisive effect of this bureaucratization is not financial, but cultural; the butcher or baker who simply gets tired of the constant paperwork and stops, or all the people who rather give up the money they are entitled to than engage in the struggle with the bureaucracy, which, for example, is necessary for a housing allowance application.
At this point, the digitalization, which the Norms Control Council is pushing as a solution, also turns out to be a trap. Because it’s not really true that the processing is always simpler digitally. Because there are always new versions, and the transition is an extremely tricky moment.
Not only because parts of the population, particularly in a society with a high percentage of migrants, are quickly excluded, or because digital technology is not barrier-free and sets technical requirements that many still can’t meet (the catastrophe of virtual teaching during the Corona crisis is a clear example). No, also because it’s clear that people don’t want to learn every new nonsense in a two-year rhythm, whether it’s about the location plan of the next supermarket or the operation of a new smartphone.
Digitalizing everything only benefits the youngest part of the population, which, however, is a minority in Germany. If the administration is now pushed to digitalize with pressure, this would only lead to older employees’ willingness to perform decreasing, as they feel dequalified; even if an abstract calculation might suggest a saving in administrative work, the actual effect in real life would be the opposite.
In an ideal world, a parliament should represent all parts of the population and all regions, so that as much immediate information as possible can flow into the political decision-making process. Even more ideal would be if the members of parliament were able to discuss what they decide with as many different people as possible beforehand. This is, of course, a completely utopian idea. But what comes out when more and more expert committees emerge may be a nice fig leaf to simulate the treatment of problems, and on a quiet, unnoticed level, enable companies like Bertelsmann to push their own agenda more effectively – but this is not democratic.
By the way, there is also such a committee in Brussels. If someone believes that such external advisors are of any use to reduce bureaucracy, the German variant is just as useless.
The worst effect of such institutions, however, is that they further habituate citizens to leave political decisions in the hands of “experts”. This is what they always do, and it’s what they will continue to do, as long as the people don’t understand that it’s about their own, personal affairs; about the things they must take care of themselves.