General IST policy: Germany

The political and administrative system of the Federal Republic of Germany is characterised by the strict application of the principle of subsidiary. In practice, this leads to a high degree of decentralisation of political responsibilities. As a result of this structure there are different initiatives and policy strategies on the Federal level and on Laender level. Furthermore there are many activities and initiatives initiated on community level. A lack of co-ordination between the different strategies, initiatives and programmes on different administration levels can be seen as a barrier.

The most important driving force in Germany for implementing different regulations, initiatives and projects is economically based. Projects and strategies were initiated against the background of economical reasons, e.g. employment creation and competition. Another dominant driving force of the ICT policy in Germany is the sustainability of the country. In the future Germany should be competitive on the international markets. Precondition is that the German society takes part in the change to the IS. Apart from those economically based driving forces the Federal Government intends to prevent a digital divide in Germany. For this reason there is a large emphasis on accelerating (new) media competence for all citizens. Worth mentioning in this context as a dominant driving force is last but not least the e-Europe Action Plan.

The policy of the Federal Government with regards to the Information Society tends to promote an accelerated use and the diffusion of modern information and communication technologies in the German society. In this context several lines of action were defined:

• Strengthening of the market economic framework and development of a legal framework
• Dialogue with industry and other relevant groupings in the society
• Education
• Supporting research and development
• IT-strategy for the public administration
• Regulation and standards
• Applications
• Co-operation on European and international level
• Co-ordination on national level.

The "Forum Info 2000", funded by the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology, was launched in 1996. It is bases on the commitment of approximately 180 high level representatives of various organisations and groupings including industry, unions, social organisations, etc. to contribute to the implementation of the Information Society. The aims of this initiative can be summarised as follows:

• to demonstrate the opportunities generally offered by applying information and communications technology,
• to reflect and reduce fears, criticism and reservations relating to the Information Society,
• to develop strategies how to best realise the benefits the Information Society potentially holds for the society as a whole and for the individual citizens in particular.

Concerning older people, objectives can be summarised as follows:

• to raise the level of (new) media competence amongst the older generation,
• to demonstrate the opportunities connected with new services and technologies,
• to reduce fears and raise the level of acceptance amongst older citizens regarding new services and technologies.

There are many different initiatives and actions initiated on Laender level with the aim of speeding up Germany's way towards an Information Society and of facilitating the access to the information and communication technologies for all societal groups. Mentioning every initiative in every Federal state is far beyond the scope of this report. Therefore the different initiatives and projects in Northrhine-Westfalia, Bavaria and Baden-Wuerttemberg will be described exemplaritly.

• The media NRW state government initiative was founded in 1995 as the central instrument for implementing media policies in Northrhine-Westphalia. It is Central Europe's most comprehensive political initiative aimed at promoting the multimedia evolution."

• The most important initiative in Bavaria is "Bayern Online" ("Bavaria Online"). In order to implement and to extend Bavaria's top position as a business location the main objective of this initiative is to accelerate the use of new information and communication technologies.

• The government of Baden-Wuerttemberg realises the chances of the new information and communication technologies and for the reason of not staying behind the developments of an Information Society the government has launched the initiative "Baden-Wuerttemberg medi@". The reasons for initiating the "Baden-Wuerttemberg medi@" are primarily economically based: Baden-Wuerttemberg tries to improve its position in the national/ global market by investing in the new sectors like telecommunication, information technologies, media and entertainment.