<<<< BREATHE OR BE STRANGLED
The government declares war on red tape and may win a skirmish or two
If Eskimos have dozens of words for snow, Germans have as many for bureaucracy. The most popular is Amts-schimmel, a word of obscure origin that translates roughly as "the office horse". The government declares that it is bent on chasing these clodhoppers out of Germany. But has it any more chance of success than in the past? The Institute for the German Economy, the research arm of the country's business associations, hopes so, if only because the economy might be strangled to death unless red tape is loosened.
Germans are fed up with forms and rules. Pollsters at the Allensbach Institute say that as many as 90% of Germans have had rows with bureaucrats, up from 64% in 1978. Bild, Germany's biggest tabloid, recently sent out a reporter in search of ridiculous rules. One example: a tailor who had to put up a notice saying "Fire Extinguisher" next to (guess what) her fire extinguisher, to produce a thick folder with all regulations relevant to her business, to raise her work table by 10 centimetres, to buy a special emergency kit, and to check whether her only employee was allergic to nickel -- at a cost of US$428.
Germany is, in short, one of the most rule-bound countries in the world. And that is bad news for the economy, particularly for entrepreneurs hoping to set up in business. A new World Bank study, "Doing Business in 2004", illustrates the problem. The study shows that it takes an average of 45 days to register a new firm in germany compared with 18 in England and only 4 in America. The process is also cheaper in America, England, Canada and France than in Germany. [KSH: These examples are as nothing compared with the former communist countries of Europe and now notionally "free enterprise". In Ukraine, for example, licences are needed from 19 government departments {with suitable financial "sweeteners" in many cases}before someone can set up in business. This can take anything up to 6 to 9 months.)
The government has launched a "masterplan for educing bureaucracy", listing dozens of cases where archaic rules should be scrapped or simplified. It recently brought in a bill to so away with such workplace regulations as where to put lightswitches or the shape of rubbish bins. The government has also chosen three regions where some laws will be suspended while local and federal agencies try out alternatives.
Yet it will take years for Germany to match America and England. Germans may inveigh against bureaucrats, but they have a soft spot for state mollycoddling. In any case, over a third of the members of the federal parliament are former civil servants, hardly likely to be at the forefront of a campaign to cut bureaucracy. Even some businessmen are ambivalent, for regulation can be a useful barrier to competition. Thje supposedly free market opposition has attacked government plans to loosen laws protecting guilds of architects and craftsmen from competition. [KSH: In Germany I would never have been allowed to start businesses in architecture or music publishing because, as a chemist, I didn't have the necessary qualifications.]
The language of officialdom hardly helps. A recent exmple of cutting red tape was a law to speed up approval for building roads. Its name: Verkehrswegeplanungsbeschleunigungsgesetz.
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Economist - 13 October 2003
Keith Hudson, Bath, England, <www.evolutionary-economics.org>, <www.handlo.com>, <www.property-portraits.co.uk>
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