According to its own statements, the CSU wants to make Germany more digital and has an agenda for 2021 formulated. The decision paper contains, among other things, demands for rapid network expansion, a fully digital identity card in the smartphone and a reduction in internet bureaucracy. The party also calls for a “minimum taxation” from US Internet companies such as Google or Amazon.

The 17 Point-comprehensive submission, which the CSU state group wants to resolve on January 6th and 7th at its retreat in Berlin, contains proposals that To make Germany a “pioneer of digitization”, as it says in it. The paper is available to the German Press Agency. First the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung” reported about it.

Google and Amazon tax According to the will the CSU is supposed to have a “Europe-wide regulation for a minimum taxation” of large digital corporations like Amazon or Google. The US corporations have been criticized for years for their business models. “We want to tax the Internet giants,” says the draft resolution. If Google and Facebook made money with personalized advertising and data from Germany, then they would have to “give something back to our community from this profit”. The time is ripe for a “Google and Amazon tax”, they say. The paper does not contain a specific number.

In addition, the party calls for “a spaceport for Germany and Europe”. Up to 2028 would be up to 8500 small satellites launch into space to collect data on earth observation and environmental and climate research. They all needed a porter and a launch site. Germany should provide this spaceport. “We want to set up and operate a mobile launch platform in the North Sea together with industry,” says the draft resolution.

ID card in the app According to the will of the CSU, digitization in Germany is to be promoted at different levels. The newly founded mobile radio infrastructure company (MIG) is supposed to help, by no later than 2024 all white spots in the mobile network expansion “with stationary or mobile masts to eliminate”. Until 2025 the party wants according to the resolution proposal 15 provide billions of euros for gigabit networks. The goal is “a nationwide 5G network”.

If the CSU has its way, the identity card should in future only be available digitally, on the smartphone. The ID card has had electronic functions for around ten years. In order to use it, you previously needed a normal ID card in addition to a smartphone.

“We want the online ID card to be even easier to use in the future and the ID card to be displayed directly can be saved on your own smartphone, “says the CSU template. Administrative procedures should be digitized as completely as possible. Frequently used services should be as easy as ordering in an online shop. This should then also apply to other official documents such as the driver’s license.

Cookies as a burden Surfing the Internet should also become less bureaucratic. To this end, the CSU wants to abolish the general obligation to consent to so-called cookies. Cookies store data on the user’s hard drive when surfing the Internet and are also used to present consumers with individual advertising.

In its paper, the CSU demands that users stipulate by law “that users can use generally agree to cookies via a setting in your browser “. From the point of view of the CSU, the obligation to be asked for consent to cookies every time you visit a new website should be dropped. She is a “burden for fast surfing”.

School subjects “Programming” and “Digital Economics” The CSU in the Bundestag is also calling for educational reforms to make schools and pupils more fit for the digital world. “The subjects of programming and digital economy must be available throughout Germany,” says the draft resolution for the CSU regional group meeting on January 6th and 7th. In addition, every subject must also be able to be taught digitally.

A nationwide education platform should enable video conferences and digital learning management, it says. “The federal platform is an open offer to the federal states, which can be networked with federal infrastructures and is available for all educational areas.”

Röttgen: “System failure” of educational federalism A national education summit by the federal and state governments for digitization is necessary. “It doesn’t make sense for each country to develop its own server and cloud solution. It is right and necessary that the federal government support this,” says the paper. “But it is also true that a lot of things arrive too slowly or too little. We therefore want future federal funding to be linked to clear deadlines for implementation.”

The CDU presidency candidate Norbert Röttgen stated “a crisis in educational federalism that had become too clear in the pandemic”. The federal education system is not even able to spend the five billion euros from the federal budget on digitizing schools, he criticized in the newspapers of the Funke media group. “I don’t want to take away any competencies from the federal states, but this system failure is unacceptable. As a result, German schools are far from being able to give online lessons in all aspects.”

VR glasses and consoles for daycare centers The CSU does not want to start promoting digital education in schools . “We want to introduce children to the correct use of digital media as early as possible,” it says – already in daycare. To this end, the CSU wants to campaign for a funding program for daycare centers with a volume of one billion euros. “The aim is to fund the acquisition of cameras for the production of stop-motion pictures, tablets and apps, VR glasses and consoles that combine analog gaming and digital learning.”

(hob)