When the Greens took power in Baden-Württemberg twelve years ago, one of their main concerns was to allay the fears of ecological change in the economy.

The politically neglected ecological innovative spirit of many companies initially made it easy for Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann to gain credibility, especially since he cleverly involved the leaders of large companies such as Bosch or Daimler politically.

Rudiger Soldt

Political correspondent in Baden-Württemberg.

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After more than a decade in government and in view of difficult times in global politics, this acceptance hardly counts for the Greens anymore.

It is now about a harder political currency: measurable political successes.

Five new wind turbines were built in Baden-Württemberg in 2022, and such a system is usually planned for six years.

In educational comparison studies, the country is only in the middle.

Dissatisfaction with the Greens is growing

So far there have been no visible successes in reducing bureaucracy, there are significantly more civil servants working in the ministries than before, and the dissatisfaction of the citizens is growing.

This was recently shown in an "open letter" written by the three municipal umbrella organizations, all important business associations as well as savings banks and cooperative associations.

The associations demanded that Kretschmann set up a "future convention" to end "paralyzing sluggishness and a perceived standstill", to reduce regulatory standards and to reduce bureaucracy in the administration.

The CDU cheered the demand a few minutes after its publication.

Not without reason, the green state ministry got the impression that a new alliance of business and the CDU could form here.

Kretschmann refused to convene a future convention – he had no other choice, it would have been tantamount to admitting his failure.

After all, in almost every interview the Prime Minister now calls the excessive bureaucracy a major construction site for business and society.

The complaints about this, often combined with criticism of the prime minister's lack of assertiveness, are no longer only brought forward by functionaries of the business associations, but also come from his party: members of the state parliament scold the bureaucracy behind closed doors, former members of parliament such as the Upper Swabian banker Eugen Schlachter write papers.

Schlachter forwarded the open letter from the business associations to the Green party friends with this comment:

Instead of a future convention, the Greens want a new regulatory control council

The clear, hostile announcements from business caused unrest in the Villa Reitzenstein: Kretschmann's head of state, Florian Stegmann, dissolved the Regulatory Control Council, which was actually supposed to work on the topics of the "Future Convention", shortly before Christmas.

The Regulatory Control Council, which was set up in 2018 at the suggestion of Klaus-Peter Murawski, then head of the Green Party, is now to be reconstituted in the first quarter of this year.

The proposals of the previous body were "two levels too far down", said Kretschmann as a reason.

Outraged statements by the honorary members of the committee were not long in coming, the chairwoman Gisela Meister-Scheufelen (CDU) referred to 160 suggestions for improvement and called her dismissal "disrespectful and styleless".

The task of the Regulatory Control Council was to calculate the so-called "compliance costs" for each almost completed law, i.e. to determine the costs and the bureaucracy for citizens, business and administration.

The new Regulatory Control Council, which will have fewer members with a CDU party book, will have a different orientation: It should subject every new standard to a “practice and digitization check” at an early stage and, as a precautionary measure, check which “unwanted bureaucratic burdens” for the “standard recipients”, i.e. the citizens, arise.

Practice check before the legislative process

Instead of the subsequent, quantitative assessment of bureaucracy costs, the drafting of new laws should be critically monitored even before the first cornerstones are drafted.

The green-black government is based on the approach of the Federal Government's Regulatory Control Council.

The actual legislative process is preceded by a "legislative laboratory" with a practical check.

So far, according to Kretschmann, the "bureaucratic hydra" has had its head cut off, and then two new monsters have grown up.

According to the additional "Transformation Master Plan", the reduction in bureaucracy is now to be tested in pilot projects for three months and then transferred to the entire state administration.

The old Regulatory Control Council also works preventively.

Critics say that norm control does not work without determining the "compliance effort" of a completed law: "If you do not calculate and name the costs of a firecracker ban, you have little opportunity to talk administration and politics out of such a law," says a former member of the Regulatory Control Council.

The government is only concerned with distracting from the limited success of the executive in reducing bureaucracy and digitization.

Experienced ministry officials say that the assertiveness of the prime minister and his head of state chancellor is decisive for reducing bureaucracy.

When presenting the master plan, Kretschmann said: "When I read my notes, I sometimes ask myself what else I can actually decide." The master plan is only a start.

"You can only change the world step by step."