[hrbf]

I believe the author’s point to be that due to no English translation available, the already involved process in Germany becomes unnecessarily hard for a non-native speaker. As a native speaker I can attest to lots of gobbledygook official documents I had to deal with in my lifetime. The amount of paper you have to deal with when running a business is truly staggering.

Bureaucracy is indeed a rampant runaway force in Germany. Every attempt at reducing it will inevitably create more of it, because, in the bureaucratic mind, you now have to create an oversight committee to control the adherence to the decree of reduction.

I believe this to be a universal constant: you cannot task bureaucracy to with making itself superfluous. Digital services are a decade behind here, since most bureaucrats fight tooth and nail against them, for fear of losing their job.

[chironjit]

I think the issue is actually much worse than just making it harder for someone to start a company.

The primary issue i see with Germany are that the issues raised by the writer is not just limited to starting a company. It is EVERYWHERE.

The problem is that whether Germans realise or not, it profoundly affects them in many ways.

Because of the archaic system of doing things, everything takes time. You have to set aside time to do these things. Because of how bureaucratic every process is, each staff can only see a limited number of people.

You constantly have to refresh some archaic website to find a slot. Slots are usually all gone in an instant, and your luck depends on someone cancelling or maybe them adding an extra staff for that day.

Often, there is no way to submit applications online, even for things that may logically be better off being submitted online.

The problem i see is: 1) It affects everything, including healthcare. Waiting times for public healthcare, government support etc, are through the roof. 2) Often times, this time blowout issue is blamed on something else (such as refugees, etc). There may be some truth to it, but as an outsider I see how easy it feels to blame some hapless refugee than admitting that system was already at its seams prior. 3) This system disadvantages the less-well-off - being able to pay for it lets you buy your way out of the hassle. 4) Unfortunately, most Germans view this from some perspective of denial, helplessness while others get defensive when you argue about it.

[ido]

There’s also a lot of resistance to digitalization- for example I work with some government organizations (both federal and state) and they’d often require me to send some documents printed out and signed in the post. There is absolutely no reason why in the 21st century you shouldn’t be able to accept email documents digitally signed instead.

[mkl95]

Since one of the EU's goals is to make it easier to do business, I would expect the EU to fund translations to all its official languages (with English among them). As far as I know no country has requested it.

[_vbnz]

The same EU that introduced the GDPR, Link Tax, Cookie Law, etc. as "easier to do business", really?

The EU is to the German establishment what the USSR was to the Russian establishment.

[lynx23]

Then the author should probably register a company in an english speaking country. Go figure.

[pembrook]

And this kind of attitude is why Europe’s future prospects don’t look great.

Based on the demographics, most European countries are going to have to start importing young people (immigrants) if they want to keep their social welfare systems up for the next generation. It’s a well known fact that first generation immigrants often have the highest rates of entrepreneurship.

Yet, unlike the US, which was created around the idea of being a nation of immigrants, Europe does a really bad job of integrating people (not unique to Europe, it’s really the default state of humans).

English is the lingua franca of Europe. To make it hard for the people most likely to start a business (immigrants) to do so, is astonishingly short sighted. Where do you think the tax money that pays for the salaries of the 5 million German government workers rubber stamping all these documents comes from?

[Major_Grooves]

indeed. As I was doing the process with two native German speakers, the language was really the minor part of the problem. Really it is the overall process that is absurd.