Cover: Digital Policy for Business, Work and Consumers

Digitisation is already transforming the way we live, communicate, work, do business, and consume - and it will do so even more in the future. The change which we are experiencing is not a purely economic and technological change; it is a process which involves the entire society and issues of freedom and democracy. Also: digitisation is a cross-sectoral issue that has intersections in the fields of economy, labour and consumer policy.

Against this background, the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, and the Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection have jointly drawn up the paper entitled “Digital Policy for Business, Work and Consumers – Trends, Opportunities, Challenges”.

The publication describes trends, opportunities and challenges of digitisation in a social market economy and sets out political guidelines to shape digital transformation to the benefit of the economy, employees and consumers. Moreover, it describes measures and initiatives in ten fields of action and sketches out the requirements to be met by future digital policies at national, European and international level.