To transform into a climate-neutral and digital economy, large parts of infrastructure, buildings, or industrial plants need to be newly built, expanded, or modernized in the coming years. To meet Germany's and Europe's ambitious goals in digitization and climate protection, this transformation needs to occur even faster than before.

The duration and complexity of planning and approval procedures inhibit companies in their ability to develop and slow them down in transitioning to a climate-neutral and digital economy. In the past, numerous legislative changes were announced to enable more rapid planning. These included, for example, combining different procedural stages, reducing duplicate checks, fixed deadlines for material and legal contexts, shortening timelines, and simplifying proofs and checks.

Despite these announcements, previous legislative proposals have focused only on the approval of individual infrastructures or plant types. Facilitations or reductions in procedural rules are also implemented only partially. To align the economy as a whole to be future-proof, companies of all industries and sizes should be able to realize new projects or modernize existing plants faster than before. This ranges from the planning of large infrastructure projects to simple building permits. Acceleration measures should therefore be fully implemented in the entire planning and approval law.