• Federal Republic improves by two places but still slightly below average
• Progress in network expansion, setbacks in digital administration
• New Bitkom DESI index published: Finland ranks first

Germany has improved slightly in terms of digitalisation compared to other EU countries and now ranks 14th among the 27 member states. Last year, Germany was still in 16th place, but had already achieved better results in 2021 and 2023, ranking 12th and 13th. In the digital economy segment, Germany currently ranks eighth in the EU, ninth in network quality and 15th in digital skills. However, Germany lags far behind in digital administration, ranking 21st. This is shown by the Bitkom DESI Index, which compares the progress of digitalisation in EU countries. ‘Germany has fallen behind digitally under the traffic light coalition,’ said Bitkom President Dr Ralf Wintererst, commenting on the new figures. ‘Fourteenth place is the starting point for the black-red coalition. Moving up two places each year and securing a position in the top third must be the minimum goal for the new federal government.’ The introduction of a digital ministry is the first important step. Wintergerst: “Now we need to reduce bureaucracy and build digital skills, both in the economy and in society. At the same time, the digitalisation of public administrations must be massively accelerated. It is not enough for the federal government to do its homework. Around 90 per cent of all administrative activities are carried out by the federal states and, above all, by cities and municipalities. The federal government must provide more support and make better offers, but the states, counties and municipalities must also accept them.”

The EU Commission has been collecting comprehensive data on the digitisation of member states since 2014, but has not published a DESI ranking since 2023. DESI stands for ‘Digital Economy and Society Index’. ‘This index was internationally recognised as the most important benchmark for digital progress in EU countries, even if not everyone liked its results,’ says Wintergerst, assessing the previous EU DESI. Since 2023, however, the EU has only published rankings for 31 individual indicators – for example, basic digital skills in society, 5G network coverage and the availability of digital government services. Bitkom reviewed this set of EU indicators, eliminated two inconsistencies and then created a new index based on the established EU methodology. According to this, Finland ranks first in the overall ranking, followed by Denmark, the Netherlands, Malta and Sweden. Bulgaria, Greece and Romania bring up the rear, trailing far behind the other countries.

For Germany, the rankings in the individual areas are as follows:

• In the area of ‘Digital transformation of enterprises’, Germany ranks eighth. Here, developments were slightly faster than the EU average, particularly in the areas of artificial intelligence and cloud computing. Denmark ranks first in this category, followed by Finland and Sweden.
• Germany ranks ninth in terms of thequality of its digital infrastructure, but only 19th in terms ofusage. Wintergerst: “99 per cent of households in Germany are covered by 5G. Around 78 percent have access to a gigabit connection with at least 1000 Mbit/s. However, only 6 percent of households have signed up for such a connection, which is 16 percentage points below the EU average.‘
• In the area of ’digital skills”, Germany ranks 15th in the EU comparison. Around 20 per cent of German citizens have above-average skills in information and communication technologies, meaning they are above average in their ability to use hardware, software and digital applications. This is eight percentage points below the EU average. People in Finland, the Netherlands and Sweden have the best digital skills.
• In terms of ‘digitalisation of public administration,’ Germany ranks lowest compared to the other categories, coming in at only 21st out of 27. EU data shows below-average values for the digitalisation of German public authorities across almost all indicators. For example, only 38 percent of forms are pre-filled with data already known to the public administration – the EU average is 71 percent. Similarly, the use of digital administrative services, at 64 percent, is more than ten percentage points below the EU average. Malta ranks first in digital administration, followed by Estonia and Finland.

Wintergerst: “The new EU ranking shows that Germany must step up its efforts to not only keep pace with other nations in terms of digitisation, but also to move ahead. The federal government will have been in office for 100 days on Thursday. It now needs a digital policy roadmap that defines a target vision, sets priorities and specifies concrete measures.” From Bitkom’s point of view, the focus should not only be on drastic debureaucratisation and a comprehensive regulatory freeze, but also on effectively stimulating investment and reducing energy costs for the energy-intensive digital economy. ‘The very high electricity costs compared to the rest of the EU are a competitive disadvantage for data centre and network operators, and communication services are becoming unnecessarily more expensive,’ said Wintergerst.

There is also a need to strengthen digital and media literacy – from school to continuing vocational training. To advance the digitisation of public administration, Bitkom is calling for the abolition of written form requirements by means of a general clause and the enshrinement of the ‘once-only’ principle in law. According to this principle, information only needs to be provided to public authorities once. ‘The Bitkom DESI Index shows that digitalisation can only succeed if it is understood as a joint task. It is not primarily about winning rankings – it is about a digitally sovereign, efficient and resilient Germany.’