24 Nov. Appeal to the Digital Ministers‘ Conference: Implementation of important ap-proval and fast-track procedures must no longer be held up at local government level
Berlin, 24.11.2025. At today’s conference of state digital ministers, the VATM is calling for decisive action at all federal levels. For a successful digital transformation, Germany finally needs uniform nationwide approval and acceleration procedures that work in practice – not just on paper.
VATM Managing Director Dr Frederic Ufer expressly welcomes the commitment of Federal Digital Minister Dr Karsten Wildberger, who is driving forward the modernisation and harmonisation of processes together with the digital ministers of the federal states. ‘The urgency has been recognised at federal level – that is an important step,’ says Ufer. However, changes to regulations and laws alone are not enough. The decisive factor now is implementation in the federal states and, above all, in the local authorities, because that is where the most significant delays continue to occur.
Following the amendment to the Telecommunications Act (TKG) in early summer, the ‚overriding public interest‘ in expanding digital networks was finally incorporated into legislation. The intention was to serve as a catalyst and simplify planning and regulatory decisions. However, around five months after coming into force, it is clear that this requirement is not being met in many municipalities. The industry has seen little improvement so far, despite the political framework being in place. It is now crucial to eliminate uncertainty among administrations and construction companies caused by conflicting interpretations of the law at state and local levels.
The VATM managing director demands: “The overriding public interest will remain lip service as long as it is not used by local authorities. We expect the federal and state governments to pull together and interpret and communicate the new regulations uniformly. Only then will local authorities make broad use of this important legal opportunity to accelerate planning and construction projects for digital infrastructure.”
Many of the levers for change lie with the federal states and local authorities – and they are structured very differently. „It would therefore only make sense for transparent progress monitoring at all levels to track whether key acceleration elements – in particular the overriding public interest – actually reach the local authority level,” suggests Ufer.
This is also highly relevant for the upcoming amendment to the Telecommunications Act, which should bring further improvements as well as a faster and more significant reduction in bureaucracy.
