Worth noting that this is a push from the CDU who are leading the government, but their coalition partner the SPD has already come out pretty strongly against this, so it's rather unclear if this would ever actually go through (not to mention challenges from constitutional courts). The CDU cannot unilaterally push through legislation without the SPD.<p>The SPD has rolled over for the CDU in the past on things, but they've also blocked things they thought were important enough to block, so it's really anyone's guess if this go through (I personally wouldn't bet on it, but I'm sure a bunch of dour pessimists will come explain to me that it's a foregone conclusion and I'm naive).
First phrase in the article: "Shortly before the German parliament's summer recess, lawmakers approved a whole series of reforms." Sounds like "done and dusted" to me. The Bundesrat (the second chamber of the parliament) also approved, er, something, but it's not clear to me if it's just the health measures or also the rest.<p>And yes, no idea why the SPD is so on board with this - some measures, like having to provide a medical certificate from the first day of an illness (which in practice means you have to go to the doctor personally on the first day of sickness, no matter how you feel), are definitely not going to increase the dismal approval ratings of this government.
"SPD will block this" is contradicted by SPD already voting for the identical Berlin version weeks ago.
This seems to be the latest attempt of the conservative CDU to further reduce transparency and accountability of government officials. One could posit the goal is to enable corruption without all that hassle of the media potentially finding out about it.
A country in decay..
I'd generally agree, but my follow up question would be: which western country isn't?
AfD will come and rescue everyone. /s
I don't think this would pass at all, the German parliament is now in summer break and once they're back there would be 3 federal state elections and depending on its outcome, the current government could collapse before the end of this year.
What incidents are driving such a change?
Recently there was a days long blackout in the middle of winter in Berlin due to a left-extremist attack on power line infrastructure [1]. This was mainly because all those critical infrastructure information is publicly accessible. I can imagine the goal is to prevent such critical information being publicly available in the future.<p>Also, there was big scandal from then health minister of Germany [2] and the information came out through various media out lets. I can imagine the politicians wants to prevent that happening in the future as well, so the corruption would go undetected (this is just my opinion)<p>[1]- <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/berlin-blackout-how-dangerous-are-leftwing-extremists/a-75400358" rel="nofollow">https://www.dw.com/en/berlin-blackout-how-dangerous-are-left...</a>
[2] - <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/covid-19-german-govt-suffers-defeat-in-face-mask-scandal/a-69742701" rel="nofollow">https://www.dw.com/en/covid-19-german-govt-suffers-defeat-in...</a>
Germany is forgetting history already.
Same thing happened in Romania.<p>The previous president was burning tens of million of Euros on renting private jets on the taxpayer's dime for trips that weren't related to his duties, and when reporters wanted to investigate this misuse, the government came forward and called the president's travel history (and expenses) a national security topic and remove it from the freedom of information.<p>Isn't it convenient how you can just cover corruption under the rug by invoking national security? I'm surprised it hasn't been used more often.
I'm not really sure I buy the alarm on restricting FoI requests to German citizens and EU citizens in Germany.<p>Should a random US citizen be able to ask a random Germany government official for data? Why?
It's not just foreign nationals that would be barred from issuing requests but non-profit organizations as well. Also, the cap on fees would be eliminated, further increasing the barriers for people wanting to issue requests.
How about the us citizen who is a permanent resident in Germany? German family? Business partners?
What is the rationale to restrict it to citizens? Do you prefer a more open or more closed society?
The US and UK let anyone in the world file a request, regardless of citizenship.<p>Countries that don’t usually rationalize: government is answerable primary to those it governs and taxes, limit flood of requests, some laws only extend rights to citizens of countries that offer similar rights back, worry that other governments could use it as low cost intelligence gathering, harder to charge or pursue fees.
Define society. Is some dude in the USA, or UK part of the German society?
It excludes organisations and increases fees. So, if say Amnesty or Greenpeace (two NGOs opposing this act) want to FoI something, they have to get a German citizen to do it for them, possibly at considerable expense - and you bet if they try to compensate them, it'll be "foreign interference" and an excuse for suppression.<p>Like GDPR, the existence of FoI laws give government agencies a reason to develop systems to quickly and effortlessly give people the access they're entitled to. Given the existence of such systems (analogous to the "data takeout" systems businesses must have for PII), giving access to foreigners as well should be unproblematic. It's supposed to be public information in the first place, roadblocks have no place.
This is a minor point. It gives the government broad power to reject any request, associations and media outlets are excluded, it costs more and the mandatory REDACTION OF NAMES is undercutting accountability completely.<p>Yea, I don't give a shit wether only citizen should be able to request data.