Four out of five companies in Europe's largest economy continue to use fax machines. But Germany's parliament has until the end of June to stop relying on the antiquated communication technology.The CeBit technology fair in Hanover, Germany, March 24, 1990, shows a portable fax machine that weighs 3 kilos and can be connected to any telephone via acoustic couplers.BERLIN — The sound of the 1990s still resonates in the German capital. Like techno music, the fax machine remains on trend.
Torsten Herbst, parliamentary whip of the pro-business Free Democrats, points out one fax machine after the other as he walks through the Bundestag. He says the public sector is particularly fond of faxing and that joining parliament was like going back in time. "We have a lot of procedures in Germany where you print out papers or you need a PDF file — and in the end it will be printed out, which makes no sense," Herbst says, shaking his head.that if Germany wants to boost economic growth, it must reduce red tape and finally get round to digitizing properly.in Berlin, agrees."Fifty-eight percent of companies we surveyed say they don't want to invest in Germany because of bureaucracy," Alsleben says.
Alsleben says this obsession with red tape is the result of a risk-averse mindset among Germany's public servants.