This is how the start-up's controversial position paper made its way onto the Ministry of Economy's website

The news portal Netzpolitik.org has obtained documents via a freedom of information request. These show that the ministry knew pretty much everything about the content of its advisory board's anti-press position paper and published it anyway.

For a long time, nobody knew about the start-up advisory board of the Federal Ministry of Economics. Then they wrote a position paper that initially languished on the website of the Federal Ministry of Economics for a few weeks - and ultimately caused great outrage. Because the position paper had it all: in it, the advisory board called for the press to be disciplined and obliged to report on unimportant IPOs of young companies.

The Advisory Board rowed back shortly afterwards. The question of whether the Federal Ministry of Economics, on whose website the position paper was published, was aware of the content of the anti-press document remains unresolved to this day. Netzpolitik.org submitted a freedom of information request and has now clarified the matter: according to the research, the ministry was aware of the content and nevertheless published the paper on its own website. It was only when public outrage skyrocketed that the Federal Ministry of Economics wanted to distance itself from it.

According to the research, the paper was passed through several departments, where the strange formulations were noticed. These included, for example, that the press should be disciplined or that only clear names should be used on the internet so that critics can be identified by companies. According to Netzpolitik.org, the department now writes: "The recommendations for corresponding obligations for press reporting from the corporate sector are surprising and should be rejected."

In the end, the later controversial version of the position paper appears on the site, where Handelsblatt finds it a month later, reports on it and sets the shitstorm in motion, at the end of which an advisory board member takes his hat off and Federal Economics Minister Peter Altmaier (CDU) has to publicly apologize. A spokesperson told Netzpolitik.org today that the whole process was a "mistake", although the Federal Ministry of Economics does not evaluate the content of the advisory board's work as it is an expression of opinion.