When Fabian Mehring starts talking about digitalization, many English terms come up. He is a “digital native”, his employees in the ministry work “hands on”, the administration must become a “push government” and in general the state needs a “booster”. The Free State too, but not so much: after all, Bavaria is already the digital number one in Germany, Bavaria’s new digital minister repeatedly emphasized. What drives him, what does he plan to do? The Free Voters politician SZ Dossier gave his first interview.
“Digitization is the master task of our time,” he said. He hasn’t had much to do with the issue in the past. However, you don’t have to be a specialist politician to notice: all areas of life are affected, no sector is spared. The problems did not go unnoticed by citizen Mehring. For example, when registering a car: “You take a number and sit in the vehicle registration office for three and a half hours, even though the actual process takes maybe 90 seconds.”
However, the Bavarian Digital Ministry lacks the responsibilities to achieve much. The house’s budget is just over 100 million euros – little compared to its counterparts in other Bavarian state ministries. Other ministries are responsible for important digital projects such as broadband and mobile communications expansion or quantum computers. What remains is digital administration and computer game promotion.
“We don’t have to be the octopus that grabs digital responsibilities from other departments,” said Mehring. “For me, it’s not important how many jobs I have or what budget.” In the Bavarian budget, 2.2 billion euros are reserved for digitalization. “I will not invest my time in getting as much of this money into my house as possible, but rather in coordinating it so that every euro is put to good use.”
“We can’t just talk about technology”
He doesn’t see the danger that he will starve to death in dialogue with his colleagues. Among other things, he hopes for his party colleagues: He wants to digitize the economy with Economics Minister and party leader Hubert Aiwanger and also use the “short line” with his counterparts in the Ministry of Education and Consumer Protection. “The Digital Ministry always had good ideas, but often the problem was that they couldn’t always convince the other houses.”
Mehring wants to focus on rural areas. “I’m a digital native, but I’m also a village boy and come from a village of 800 people.” The topic of digitalization would have to be conveyed there in a more “heartfelt” way and the added value for people’s personal realities in life would have to be made understandable. “We can’t just talk about technology,” said Mehring.
In the end, it comes down to the infrastructure – for which he is not responsible. “I think digital must be part of basic services in 2023,” said Mehring. If someone builds a house, they get electricity and water, they also have to have fast internet. In addition, it cannot be the case that although there are quantum computers in Bavaria, there is no cell phone reception in some places. “We urgently need to improve that.”
The fact that Bavaria is currently the only federal state to block uniform endings for all official websites in Germany so that citizens can recognize whether they are on an official offer from the state or not is not a joke for Mehring. “People who live in Bavaria should be able to see that a digital administration offering is a Bavarian service,” he said.