Have They Lost Their Minds? Merz's Coalition Wants Citizens to Justify Asking Questions

Thoughts. An opinion piece. Every number has a source.

Imagine you want to know which lobbyists the finance minister met last month. Today you write an email. You cite the Informationsfreiheitsgesetz, the federal freedom of information act. You don't have to say why you're asking. Section 1 begins with one word: "Jeder". Everyone.

The federal government wants to change that word. In future you will first have to explain why you're allowed to ask. And an official in the ministry you're asking about decides whether your reason is good enough.

Have they lost their minds?

I mean that as a real question. Trust in this state is at a record low. The AfD is ahead in every single poll. A record number of Germans moved abroad last year. And the coalition's answer is to make it harder to look at what the government is doing. This is another nail in the coffin of German political credibility. There are a lot of nails in it already.

What the coalition decided

At its meeting on 1 July 2026 the coalition committee passed a 12-page paper: "Ein Programm für Aufschwung und Beschäftigung", a programme for recovery and jobs. 34 measures, pensions, taxes, labour market. Point 32 sits in the chapter on cutting red tape. It reads (Bundesregierung, PDF, p. 11f.):

"Wir wollen die Auskunftsrechte künftig auf natürliche Personen fokussieren, die ein berechtigtes Interesse an einer Auskunft haben und diese nicht durch andere Regelungen erreichen können. Dabei prüfen wir, ob wir den Kreis der betreffenden Personen auf in Deutschland lebende Deutsche und Unionsbürger beschränken."

In plain English: only individuals, only with a legitimate interest, only if there is no other route. And possibly only Germans and EU citizens who live in Germany. On top of that, officials' names are to be blacked out, fees raised "in line with cost recovery", and critical infrastructure, counter-espionage, counter-terrorism and research shielded more strongly.

What that means in practice:

An internal Interior Ministry memo from February 2026, reported by MDR and seen by FragDenStaat, goes further: proof of identity for every requester, and abolishing the federal commissioner for freedom of information (FragDenStaat, beck-aktuell). The ministry did not deny the memo.

There is no draft bill yet. The government wrote that in reply to a parliamentary question on 14 October (BT-Drs. 21/8545). So this is still a plan. That is exactly why it is worth fighting now.

And the plan has a history. In March 2025, during coalition talks, the Union side of the working group on cutting bureaucracy wrote: "Das Informationsfreiheitsgesetz in der bisherigen Form wollen wir hingegen abschaffen." Abolish it. The SPD said no at the time (netzpolitik.org). The coalition agreement then promised a reform "mit einem Mehrwert für Bürgerinnen und Bürger", with added value for citizens. On the same page it says the Bundestag must be able to "effectively control" the government. Fifteen months later the added value looks like this.

Zero

The official reason is security. Point 32 speaks of a "komplexe Bedrohungslage von innen und von außen", a complex threat from inside and outside. Asked in parliament, the government added that publishing names could be "ein Einfallstor für gezielte Cyberattacken", a gateway for targeted cyberattacks (BT-Drs. 21/7311). No case was named.

So people asked for one.

Stern magazine asked the ministries for concrete cases in which staff had been threatened because of information released under the IFG. The Interior Ministry: "Dem Bundesinnenministerium sind keine Fälle im Sinne der Fragestellung bekannt." No cases known. The Foreign Office, the Development Ministry and the Justice Ministry said much the same (dpa via Stuttgarter Zeitung). FragDenStaat asked all 17 ministries and the Chancellery for evidence of threats, misuse from abroad and overload, and had to go to the Berlin administrative court to get answers. Every single one said no (FragDenStaat).

It gets better. Asked by MPs where the "protection gaps" for critical infrastructure are, the government replied: "Die Bundesregierung führt nur eine Statistik über die Zahl der IFG-Anträge, aber keine zu deren Inhalten." It only counts requests, it keeps no record of their content (BT-Drs. 21/7434, answer 18). The head of the Chancellery, Thorsten Frei, told Die Zeit that some requests cost "einige Hunderttausend Euro". How often? "Entsprechende Daten werden statistisch nicht erfasst." Not recorded (same document, answer 24).

A government that wants to restrict a basic transparency right and cannot name a single case is using security as a pretext. The conference of Germany's freedom of information commissioners said exactly that on 6 July: the government uses security "lediglich als Vorwand", merely as an excuse (quoted in BT-Drs. 21/7791).

And the law already has the brakes. Section 3 protects public security, defence and international relations. Section 5 protects personal data. Section 6 protects trade secrets (IFG). Anything genuinely dangerous can already be refused today.

How much is there to protect against?

18,982 requests in 2025, to all federal authorities combined. 1,948 refused. About 226,000 since 2006. Many have nothing to do with politics: in 2020, for example, most requests in the Finance Ministry's area went to customs offices, over 1,000 of them from insolvency administrators, the Interior Ministry's statistics note. This is not a flood.

And Germany wasn't a pioneer to begin with.

The Global Right to Information Rating by Access Info Europe and the Centre for Law and Democracy scores laws on 61 indicators. Germany: 55 of 150, rank 129 of 142 (rti-rating.org). Zero points for sanctions, 2 of 16 for promoting the right. That is the score of the current law, before anyone cuts it.

Sweden made access to documents a constitutional right in 1766. The US passed FOIA in 1966. Germany waited until 2005. Austria abolished its official secrecy on 1 September 2025 and calls it a "Paradigmenwechsel" (Bundeskanzleramt Österreich). Germany has not ratified the Council of Europe's convention on access to official documents. In 2020 the government said it had no plans to sign (netzpolitik.org). Article 4 of that convention says an applicant "shall not be obliged to give reasons". In the RTI rating, only two European countries get zero points on exactly that question: Belarus and Hungary (rti-rating.org).

That is the company Berlin is heading for.

Why "legitimate interest" kills the law

It sounds harmless. Of course you need a reason. But look at who decides.

Today the authority must explain why it refuses. Under point 32 you must first prove that you may ask at all. The burden flips. And the one who checks your interest is the authority you're asking about. A ministry that knows it messed up gets to decide whether your curiosity counts.

What would count? Nobody knows, because there is no bill. The easiest interest to prove is a commercial or personal one: you sold something, you were affected. The interest of a citizen who simply wants to know how her government spends money is the hardest to prove. A law that leaves this open invites the narrowest reading. Bavaria shows what it looks like. Bavaria has no freedom of information law. Access only exists where "ein berechtigtes, nicht auf eine entgeltliche Weiterverwendung gerichtetes Interesse glaubhaft dargelegt wird" (Art. 39 BayDSG). The federal plan copies the Bavarian model.

And it creates bureaucracy, in a chapter on cutting it. Someone has to check identities, assess interests, write rejections, defend them in court. Every refusal can be challenged at an administrative court. That takes years and costs money. Which is the point: most people won't bother.

Then there is the rule that excludes anyone who has "other routes". Journalists have press law. But press law gets you an answer from a spokesperson. The IFG gets you the file. That difference is the whole story. The spokesperson says the procedure was proper. The file says who wrote to whom, and when.

The law that found the masks

Spring 2020. The Health Ministry under Jens Spahn buys masks. A lot of masks.

5.8 billion masks for €5.9 billion. 1.7 billion distributed in Germany. More than 3.4 billion destroyed or due to be destroyed. The Federal Audit Office calls it "massive Überbeschaffung", massive overbuying (Bundestag, ZDF). About 100 lawsuits from suppliers are still pending, total value €2.3 billion. Up to the end of 2024, managing the surplus alone cost €517 million.

How do we know what we know? A large part came out through the IFG:

• The supplier list. Requested in March 2021, released in November 2021, seven months late (FragDenStaat).
• The list of MPs. After hundreds of IFG requests the ministry published in April 2021 which Bundestag members had contacted it about mask offers. 40 names, almost all CDU/CSU (abgeordnetenwatch).
• The audit office's report to the budget committee. First refused, released in May 2024 after an IFG request (FragDenStaat).
• The source files behind the Sudhof special investigator's report, 17 files including emails. The ministry classified them to protect its position in the lawsuits. FragDenStaat sued on 2 October 2026 (FragDenStaat).

The Sudhof report itself came to the budget committee in June 2025 with heavy redactions. Health Minister Nina Warken (CDU) cited personal rights, trade secrets and pending litigation (Ärzteblatt). The full text only became public because it was leaked to the press. Spahn became leader of the Union's parliamentary group in 2025. Prosecutors closed their case against him in March 2026, finding no sufficient indication of a crime. A parliamentary inquiry never happened.

Now replay that with point 32. Who had a "legitimate interest" in the supplier list? A journalist? Excluded, press law applies. FragDenStaat? An organisation, excluded. A citizen from Münster who just wanted to know? Interest not sufficiently demonstrated. Rejected.

Nail by nail

The IFG reform does not stand alone. That is the real problem.

• Mask commissions. Union politicians Georg Nüßlein and Alfred Sauter billed commissions of about €1.26 million and €1.24 million for brokering mask deals. The Federal Court of Justice ruled in 2022 that this was not bribery, because they did not act "in Ausübung des Mandats", in the exercise of their mandate. Closing the gap, the court wrote, was the legislator's job (BGH, StB 7-9/22). The new offence, section 108f, took until June 2024 (§ 108f StGB).
• The car toll. The European Court of Justice struck down Andreas Scheuer's toll in 2019. The contracts had been signed beforehand. Taxpayers paid the operators €243 million in a settlement. Scheuer and his former state secretary are now on trial in Berlin for false testimony to the inquiry committee. Both deny it (LTO).
• Cum-Ex. At least €10 billion in tax damage (Uni Mannheim). In 2016 Hamburg let a €47 million claim against Warburg bank lapse. Olaf Scholz, mayor at the time, met the bank's owner and says he cannot remember what they discussed.
• Azerbaijan. In January 2026 a Munich court sentenced former CDU MP Axel Fischer for taking bribes as a Council of Europe delegate. Not yet final, an appeal is announced (LTO).
• Deleted mailboxes. The Federal Archives received no mailboxes or chats from former ministers Christian Lindner and Bettina Stark-Watzinger. A Finance Ministry rule deletes them 180 days after departure (Correctiv).
• Pay. In July 2025 MPs' pay rose by €606.27 a month to €11,833.47, through automatic indexation (Bundestag). In fairness: the 2026 increase was suspended (Bundestag).

And then the nail that fits this story best. On 24 February 2025, the day after the federal election, the CDU/CSU group submitted 551 questions to the government about NGOs. Correctiv, Omas gegen Rechts, Campact, Greenpeace, Foodwatch, Netzwerk Recherche and more. Each got its own block of questions about funding and political neutrality. Signed by Friedrich Merz and Alexander Dobrindt (BT-Drs. 20/15035).

Nobody asked them for a legitimate interest.

That is the double standard in one sentence. Those in power ask 551 questions about civil society, without justification. Civil society asking questions about those in power is supposed to justify itself first. I can't find a better word than self-service store: a political class that keeps the rules for itself and the bill for everyone else.

None of this is illegal in itself. Much of it was legal at the time. That is precisely the point. When an MP can pocket over a million euros brokering masks in a pandemic and the highest court says the law doesn't cover it, the problem is not the court. The problem is a political class that writes the rules for itself and then acts surprised that nobody believes it.

The bill: trust

79% of Germans say the state is overwhelmed by its tasks. 17% say it can cope. In 2020, in the middle of the pandemic, it was the other way round: 56% trusted the state to manage (dbb/forsa, July 2026).

7% give politicians high esteem. In 2007 it was 20%. Journalists are at 29%, firefighters at 94%. In October 2026, 10% were satisfied with the federal government, a record low (Infratest dimap).

And this is where it stops being a niche topic for journalists. Since May 2026 the AfD has been ahead in Infratest's polls. In early November every major pollster has it in first place, between 26 and 30% (wahlrecht.de). The Union stands at 18 to 23%.

I'm not claiming the IFG reform causes this. One law doesn't move a poll. But every concealment hands a gift to those who say "they're all hiding something anyway". The parties in the centre keep telling us they want to win back trust. Then they decide, behind closed doors and without evidence, that citizens should be allowed to look less closely. You don't fight extremists by confirming their narrative. You fight them by proving it wrong. With open files.

Who is supposed to keep this country running?

The coalition paper is called a programme for recovery and jobs. So let's look at who is leaving.

288,579 German citizens moved abroad in 2025. That is the highest number in the Federal Statistical Office's series, which goes back to 1950. Net, Germany lost 96,689 of its own citizens (Destatis). Top destinations: Switzerland, Austria, Spain. Earlier research found about three quarters of German emigrants have a university degree, against a quarter of the population (BiB).

It's not only Germans. In a survey of about 50,000 immigrants, 26% said they were thinking of leaving, in IT and finance up to 39%. Reasons: political dissatisfaction, taxes, bureaucracy (IAB). Of those who actually left, 32% named bureaucracy (IAB).

And companies. In the DIHK's survey, 59% of industrial firms with more than 500 employees were planning, implementing or had completed production cuts in Germany or relocation abroad in 2025. In 2016 it was 22%. In 2026 it is about 60%, and a third are already relocating (DIHK 2025, DIHK 2026). The question is about energy policy, but energy policy is policy. Industry lost 143,000 jobs in 2025 (Destatis).

24,064 business insolvencies in 2025, the most since 2014 (Destatis). January to July 2026: another 6.9% more. The economy grew by 0.0% in 2024 and 0.2% in 2025.

Two honest caveats, because this piece only works if it stays true. First: net capital outflows, often cited as proof of an exodus, have actually shrunk, from €80 billion in 2022 to €11 billion in 2025 (Bundesbank). Second: the widely quoted "millionaire exodus" figures come from a report whose 2026 edition dropped all migration numbers after accusations about its data (Tax Justice Network). I'm not using them.

What the solid data do show is enough. People with skills are voting with their feet. Industry is planning to go. And those who stay trust the state less every year.

Who is supposed to keep the country running? Without a working economy, without a transparent state and without credible politics, there is no recovery. You can't write it into a 12-page paper. You have to earn it. And you don't earn trust by closing the files.

What should happen instead

It isn't hard.

1. Drop point 32. Keep "Jeder". No justification, no nationality test.
2. Publish proactively. Hamburg has had a transparency law since 2012 that puts contracts and reports online without anyone asking. Rhineland-Palatinate followed. Proactive publication saves the very workload the government complains about.
3. Ratify the Tromsø Convention. Austria shows that a German-speaking state can abolish official secrecy.
4. Use the existing exemptions. Where there is a real security risk, section 3 applies. Name the cases. So far there are none.

The decision is the Bundestag's. Within the SPD group, the working groups on home affairs, digital policy and law wrote that there must be no reduction of existing rights to information (netzpolitik.org). SPD MP Sebastian Fiedler: "Wir werden einer Reform nicht zustimmen, die das bestehende Transparenzniveau des IFG zurückdreht." More than 650,000 people signed a petition against the plan by September (BT-Drs. 21/7791). The Greens filed a motion to strengthen the law instead.

Hold them to their word.

So, have they lost their minds?

No. That would be the kind explanation. Someone who has lost their mind doesn't know what they're doing.

This coalition knows exactly what the IFG does. It has seen what came out of the mask files. It knows that the law's power lies in the fact that anyone can ask without a reason. That is precisely the word it wants to remove.

The question is whether the Bundestag lets it. And whether those in the centre realise that every nail they hammer into their own credibility is one less argument against the people who want to bury the whole thing.

Sources

The plan

• Coalition committee: "Ein Programm für Aufschwung und Beschäftigung", 1/2 July 2026, point 32. bundesregierung.de
• Coalition agreement 2025, "Stärkung der repräsentativen Demokratie", lines 1893 to 1897; cited by the government in BT-Drs. 21/6207.
• Union negotiators' draft to abolish the IFG, March 2025. netzpolitik.org
• Government answers: BT-Drs. 21/7311 (21 July 2026), BT-Drs. 21/7434 (29 July 2026), BT-Drs. 21/8545 (14 Oct 2026).
• Interior Ministry memo, February 2026, as reported. FragDenStaat · beck-aktuell
• Informationsfreiheitsgesetz, current version. gesetze-im-internet.de · Bavaria, Art. 39 BayDSG. gesetze-bayern.de

Evidence for the security claim

• FragDenStaat, "Keine Belege", 20 Oct 2026 (VG Berlin, 27 L 256/26). fragdenstaat.de
• Stern inquiry, via dpa, 14 Jul 2026 (press). stuttgarter-zeitung.de

International comparison

• Global Right to Information Rating, country data and indicator 13. rti-rating.org · indicator 13. Germany last assessed in 2015.
• Austria, Informationsfreiheitsgesetz in force 1 Sep 2025. bundeskanzleramt.gv.at
• Bundestag research service on the Tromsø Convention, WD 2 – 103/16. bundestag.de
• Federal Interior Ministry, IFG statistics 2010 to 2025. bmi.bund.de

Masks and other cases

• Federal Audit Office before the Covid commission, 15 Dec 2025. bundestag.de · zdfheute.de (press)
• IFG requests and lawsuits on masks: supplier list · MP list · audit report · lawsuit Oct 2026
• Sudhof report redacted, June 2025 (press). aerzteblatt.de · Case against Spahn closed, March 2026 (press). berliner-zeitung.de
• BGH, decision of 5 Jul 2022, StB 7-9/22. bundesgerichtshof.de · § 108f StGB. gesetze-im-internet.de
• Scheuer trial (press). lto.de · Cum-Ex damage. uni-mannheim.de · Fischer verdict (press). lto.de · Deleted mailboxes. correctiv.org
• MPs' pay 2025 and 2026. bundestag.de · bundestag.de
• CDU/CSU, 551 questions on NGOs, BT-Drs. 20/15035. bundestag.de · Government answer 20/15101. bundestag.de

Trust and polls

• dbb citizen survey on the public service 2026, forsa, n = 2,018. dbb.de
• Infratest dimap, ARD DeutschlandTrend October 2026. infratest-dimap.de
• Polls: Infratest dimap and all institutes via wahlrecht.de. wahlrecht.de

Emigration and economy

• Destatis, migration between Germany and abroad 1950 to 2025; press release PD26_184. destatis.de · destatis.de
• BiB/GERPS on German emigrants. bib.bund.de · IAB on immigrants leaving, 2025 and 2026. iab.de · iab.de
• DIHK energy transition barometer 2025 and 2026. dihk.de · dihk.de
• Destatis on jobs and insolvencies. destatis.de · destatis.de · destatis.de · GDP revision summer 2026. destatis.de
• Bundesbank, balance of payments 2025. bundesbank.de · On the millionaire migration report. taxjustice.net

Reactions

• FragDenStaat, 2 Jul 2026. fragdenstaat.de · SPD working groups' paper (press). netzpolitik.org · Greens' motion, BT-Drs. 21/7791. bundestag.de · Federal data protection and FOI commissioner (press). netzpolitik.org

Images. Photos generated with Bria (FIBO model), no real places or people. Charts my own; data with a source per row in scripts/data/ifg-reform.json, rendering in scripts/gen-figs-ifg-reform.mjs.