The Institute for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (IfM) in Bonn sees the establishment of a single point of contact as an important task for the new federal government.
Since the end of 2009, EU member states have been required to establish Points of Single Contact. These are intended, on the one hand, to inform domestic and EU founders and entrepreneurs about the necessary administrative procedures. On the other hand, they are intended to facilitate the electronic processing of information requests, formalities, and procedures. However, Germany's federal structure and its lag in administrative digitization have led to the lack of a Point of Single Contact in the past. This could now be implemented through the development of Single Digital Gateways, which the EU Commission has recently called for as a further development.
The rule is: Avoid mistakes in the first implementation phase
In the course of the further development of the Single Contact Persons state portals, it would be in the opinion of the IfM President Prof. Dr. Friederike Welter It makes sense to involve both users and administrations and IT providers:
"Germany currently has the opportunity to avoid the mistakes of the first implementation phase, so to speak, in a second attempt. It would be helpful to learn from other successful EU countries,"
The Single Point of Contact portals in Denmark and Austria already provide a good overview of the procedures relevant to founders and entrepreneurs – both domestic and from outside the EU – and how to complete them. They also provide information on important procedures not prescribed by the European Services Directive but nevertheless relevant to many founders, such as "taxes" and "employment of staff."
Orientation towards other European countries
"The bureaucratic burden for founders and entrepreneurs – including those from neighboring EU countries – can be significantly reduced if the future federal government succeeds in rapidly advancing administrative digitization and initiating a form of Single Point of Contact. Currently, there are various isolated solutions for this in the individual federal states,"
explains Welter.
“There is no need to reinvent the wheel – in Austria and Denmark, there are already structures that economic policy here could also be based on.”
Incidentally, there is already a Single Point of Contact (EAP) in Munich that can provide advice on questions relating to permits and formalities.
