Start-ups: This is important in the coalition agreement

SPD, Greens and FDP adopt a new strategy for start-ups in their coalition paper. The scene has expressed encouragement and praise, but also criticism.

Bureaucratic hurdles, no access to government projects, too many men: the start-up industry has had to deal with many problems in the past. The new federal government wants to change that. After about two months, SPD, Greens and FDP have presented their 177-page coalition agreement . The document also has a few surprises in store for young companies. "We are adopting a comprehensive start-up strategy," it says of the traffic light coalition. Startbase took a close look at the coalition agreement. Here comes our analysis - and the industry's reactions:

  1. More money for innovation: The traffic light coalition plans to support start-ups in the fields of artificial intelligence, quantum technology, cyber security, distributed ledger technology, robotics, hydrogen, medicine, sustainable mobility, bioeconomy and circular economy in particular.
  1. Reducing bureaucracy with one-stop shops: In the future, the coalition wants to create better one-stop shops for start-up advice, funding and registration. According to the treaty, the goal is to enable start-ups within 24 hours.
  1. More social justice: more women, more people with a migration background and more social start-ups: according to the coalition, this should soon be possible with the help of scholarships and support programmes. "A modern corporate culture also includes new forms such as social enterprises, or companies with tied assets. We are developing a national strategy for social enterprises in order to provide greater support for public welfare-oriented companies and social innovations," the agreement says.
  1. Better access to data and research: To enable new innovative business models and social innovations in digitalization, the traffic light coalition wants to ensure better access to data and research results.
  1. Better access to money: In the future, the paper envisages mobilising private capital from institutional investors as well as insurance companies and pension funds for start-up financing. This would allow a lot of money that is currently untapped to flow into young companies.
  1. Better access to government projects: "We are enabling simplified, legally secure access for start-ups and young companies to public contracts," promises the coalition agreement. For example, public tenders are to be made easier, especially for start-ups that can support the state in its agenda or want to improve the education system.
  1. Strong Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau: "KfW is to act more strongly as an innovation and investment agency. The Future Fund for start-ups and financing models for public infrastructure investments are good examples of this," the paper says. The national promotional bank is to receive more money. In addition, the traffic light coalition also wants to cooperate with public development banks such as the European Investment Bank.

Founder Nicolas Scharioth praises points such as a planned better employee participation, better access to public contracts or the fast possibility to start up. Getting a start-up up and running in 24 hours also pleases the mainstream scene heads Frank Thelen and Carsten Maschmeyer.

But there is also a lot of criticism. Among others from the digital association Bitkom. For years, the start-up industry has been calling for lower taxation of employee shares in start-ups and less bureaucracy when issuing company shares in limited liability companies. Olaf Scholz did pass a reform at the beginning of 2021 - but it rather caused more trouble. Some start-ups complained that the former finance minister only raised the tax allowance. True, the new coalition agreement states "We will make employee share ownership more attractive, among other things by further raising the tax allowance." However, Bitkom finds, "This can only be a first step towards a fully comprehensive solution."

The question remains how much the government will actually implement. After all, less bureaucracy, more money and overall better framework conditions were also already the planned measures under Merkel in 2018, when the grand coalition of SPD and CDU/CSU wanted to implement 25 new measures. However, an analysis by the digital association Bitkom showed: the federal government actually implemented only 15 of the 25 goals. The bar for the traffic light coalition is therefore conceivably low.


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