If there is anything that can be learned from this year’s gas and electricity price debate, it is probably this: the energy transition and the ecological conversion of the economy should now be done quickly so that Germany can become largely independent of fossil energies and their sometimes badly reputed suppliers. In fact, there is hardly a government or city administration between Flensburg and Berchtesgaden that sees things fundamentally differently. The only problem is that it is precisely those governments and city administrations that often enough stop structural change with a jumble of rules and regulations. This is shown by an analysis by the Federation of German Industries (BDI), which took a closer look at 250 immission control approval and plan approval procedures from the years 2017 to 2022.
The central result of the investigation: the state testing and approval procedure is not only becoming more and more complicated and time-consuming, the procedures also take an average of six months longer than stipulated by law. The period alone until the competent authority has all the documents together is often one and a half years. “While it used to take two expert opinions to make a decision, today it’s five to ten,” says the analysis. What is particularly outrageous is that so-called simplified approval procedures, of all things, take an average of nine months to process, three times as long as the law stipulates.
According to a representative company survey commissioned at the same time by the Allensbach Institute for Demoscopy, every sixth company in Germany rates the public administration as poorly or not at all efficient. 90 percent of all planning and approval procedures are not about new technologies and processes, but about changes to existing systems. “If, for example, a filter has to be replaced in a system or a burner technology has to be replaced because the legal requirements or the state of the art have changed, a change permit is required,” says the study.
BDI boss Russwurm believes that the climate goals can only be achieved with faster processes
BDI President Siegfried Russwurm described the approval process to the SZ as a “bottleneck for security of supply and the transformation of the economy”. Especially in the crisis, the federal and state governments would have to speed up all relevant approvals and make decisions much faster. “The industry expects the approval processes to double by 2030 – due to the green and digital transformation and the urgently needed temporary switch from gas to oil in companies, the so-called fuel switch. The pace of the federal government with the fuel switch must serve as a blueprint for all investment projects in Germany, for example for hydrogen production plants,” said Russwurm. The exception rule for the fuel switch reduces the discretion of the authorities and, to put it simply, stipulates that the fuel switch must generally be approved.
From the point of view of the BDI boss, the fact that test procedures often take so long is often due to complex or contradictory regulations and the lack of standards. Politicians must ensure more clarity and legal certainty here. “The key to achieving the climate goals lies in faster approval procedures – at all levels and in all stages of the process. Reports should urgently be reduced to a minimum, and a hearing should only take place at the request of the applicant,” emphasized Russwurm. In addition to massive simplifications, the association is also calling for significantly better staffing of authorities and courts. The responsible authorities at municipal and state level would also have to work together much more closely and reliably than before.
After all, Russwurm has already been able to win over a prominent comrade-in-arms: Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP). The state, according to the FDP leader in an interview with the SZ, In the planning and construction of new terminals for the delivery of liquefied natural gas (LNG), I have just proved that things can be done quickly and unbureaucratically and that not every major infrastructure project has to end as sadly as the construction of Berlin Airport BER. “The pace of realization of the LNG terminals must be the new benchmark in Germany,” he emphasized. This not only applies to projects that are important in terms of energy policy, but to all projects that involve converting the economy to new, clean production methods. As examples, he named the development of a modern hydrogen and transport infrastructure. Lindner: “We have to move away from Tempo BER to Tempo LNG.”