1 January 2022
At the beginning of the year, Germany will assume the G7 Presidency. This informal group of important industrial nations discusses current political, economic and social issues and develops joint answers, based on democratic values, to the global challenges of our time such as climate change or the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Federal Minister for Digital and Transport, Dr Volker Wissing, plans to make use of the G7 process to provide a strong impetus for the important topics of the future, namely the digital transformation, connectivity and mobility, and use this as a basis to contribute to more sustainability as well as to the creation of favourable conditions for the development and application of new digital technologies.
In our globally connected world, prosperity and development increasingly depend on whether we manage to successfully use the potential of the digital transformation in all spheres of life. Therefore, it remains our goal to maintain and develop the internet as a worldwide uniform, open, transparent and non-discriminatory space and as a driving force for innovation as well as economic and social development.
For this purpose, it is, among other things, necessary to closely cooperate in the field of standards and technical regulation, to internationally endorse free and secure data flows and agree on a value-based and inclusive governance that helps to create the right conditions for secure internet use.
Together with all stakeholders affected, the G7 governments continuously analyse technological developments and new business models emerging as a result regarding their impact on business and society. They lobby together for new technologies being developed in a way that corresponds with their shared values and the needs of open and democratic societies to achieve a responsible digital transformation.
We are looking forward to a common exchange with the other G7 states on the important future-oriented topics of our time: achieving digital transformation and climate change mitigation through sustainable mobility.