The Germans aren't moving anywhere this summer.

The airports lack staff, the railways lack rails and trains, and there is no longer any need to talk about the motorway bridges in Germany, too many of which are closed anyway.

Germany as a whole is also hardly moving.

Schools are neglected.

The performance of the students has been getting weaker and weaker for the past ten years, as shown by the educational comparisons.

Germany is even falling behind.

A little more with every crisis.

During the corona pandemic, the poor technology in the schools contributed to the fact that the children did not receive proper instruction.

Initially, the tablets were missing, now air filters are still missing.

Poor technology in the offices has made managing the pandemic more difficult.

Germany invests too little

Germany is also suffering from its weak infrastructure in the Ukraine crisis.

Public transport is not well developed, electricity and gas hardly come from the energy-rich north of the country to the industrial south.

There is a lack of gas pipes, but also of power lines that could bring wind power from the coast to Bavaria.

The reason for all these shortcomings is always the same and has been known for years: the public sector does not invest enough.

On average, the EU countries have invested 3.7 percent of their economic output in state investments in the past 20 years, but Germany only 2.1 percent.

At least since the year 2000, Germany has been at the bottom of the EU comparison.

The investment backlog now amounts to hundreds of billions of euros.

The reason for this is debatable.

The left likes to blame the debt brake and the black zero.

It is forgotten that before the pandemic, Olaf Scholz' Ministry of Finance accumulated tens of billions that were planned for investments but were not spent.

The Germany problem: Everything is too complicated

Or is it more because there are so few young people in Germany?

After all, only those who are young will still benefit from large investments during their lifetime.

Both of these explain only part of the investment weakness.

Something else is more important.

This is now shown by an analysis by the Technical University of Braunschweig.

She systematically evaluated how other EU countries deal with investments.

Younger countries invest a little more, countries with a debt limit a little less.

Most important, however, was the Germany problem.

Germany invests around 1.2 percent of its economic output less than the conditions would have led to expect - simply because it is Germany.

This is "a kind of chronic investment weakness that cannot be explained away," write the scientists.

You have an idea of ​​how it could come about: through bureaucracy and cumbersome planning processes.

Everyone knows examples of this.

The new regional railway tracks in the Frankfurt area, which were decided 17 years ago, but for which the first excavator was only allowed to move in now.

Ready-to-use motorway construction sites where no one is allowed to work because a mouse might be hibernating next door.

The schools whose money for the tablets got stuck somewhere in the jumble of applications.

And if they could still start with the video lessons, they first have to clarify data protection issues, otherwise the teachers could face fines.

Germany made life complicated for itself in its good years.

Now the processes urgently need to be simplified.

The federal government has already passed priority legislation for renewable energies.

But there are other important projects.

It is understandable that these simplifications are no longer at the forefront of the traffic light coalition's thoughts.

But in the big federal government there are enough departments that can work on such questions.

You should.

They are no longer fighting the current crisis, but they are already preparing Germany for the next.