[Update, 04.07.: Unterzeichnet bitte unsere neue Petition, die die SPD-Fraktion im Bundestag auffordert, die geplante Abschaffung des Informationsfreiheitsgesetzes nicht mitzutragen!
Update, 07.07.: In einem breiten Bündnis aus mehr als 100 zivilgesellschaftlichen
Organisationen, Vereinen, Projekten, Verbänden und Medien haben wir uns in einem offenen Brief an die Bundesregierung, das Bundesinnenministerium und die Bundestagsabgeordneten im Innenausschuss gewendet, um die geplanten Änderungen des Informationsfreiheitsgesetz zu verhindern.]
The coalition agreement between the SPD and the Union was clear: more transparency, more public control. “We want to reform the Freedom of Information Act in its current form with added value for citizens and administration,” the coalition agreed in 2025. However, the party leaders no longer want to know anything about added value.
On the contrary: the SPD and the Union are planning a massive breach of the coalition agreement – and the biggest attack on government transparency in the history of the Federal Republic. Today the coalition committee decided: The Freedom of Information Act (IFG), which has been in place for 20 years, is to be de facto abolished. The IFG currently enables everyone to gain insight into government documents and thus control the actions of authorities and the government.
The central points that the SPD, CDU and CSU want to change:
- Previously, you didn’t have to give a reason why you were making a request. But in the future, inquiries should only be possible with “legitimate interest”. Accordingly, with every request you would have to prove that you have a special right to the information. This means that almost all inquiries would no longer be possible – the IFG would de facto be abolished.
- Organizations such as FragDenStaat, Deutsche Umwelthilfe and Amnesty International should no longer be allowed to make inquiries. Legal entities are prohibited from making inquiries; only private individuals should be allowed to ask in individual cases. Press representatives are apparently no longer allowed to make IFG inquiries.
- Millions of people living in Germany are no longer allowed to make IFG requests. Only those who have German citizenship or are EU citizens should be allowed to request information in individual cases. To do this, citizenship would also have to be proven for every request.
- In the future, the information requested should include the following: Names of all government employees are blacked out– also from management staff and prominent decision-makers. This would mean it would no longer be possible to verify who is responsible for official decisions. This poses a massive risk of corruption.
- IFG requests should will cost tens of thousands of euros in the future can. Previously, the fees were capped at an upper limit of 500 euros. The mere announcement that fees may apply has such a deterrent effect that inquiries are withdrawn as a result.
- The current 30 exceptional circumstances in which authorities are allowed to refuse to provide information should be included further exceptions for requests to be added. This should make it even easier for authorities to reject requests. Model for this: the de facto abolition of the IFG in Berlin.
First Amthor, now Spahn
In addition to SPD Vice Chancellor Lars Klingbeil and Labor Minister Bärbel Bas, the coalition committee also includes Chancellor Friedrich Merz, CSU leader Markus Söder and Federal Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt. A central figure in the committee: CDU parliamentary group leader Jens Spahn. His career has been threatened by the IFG several times in recent years. In the wake of the mask affair, for example, numerous internal emails were made public that documented Spahn’s failures. Spahn’s connections to the tech fascist Peter Thiel and his questionable villa purchase during the corona pandemic were also in the public eye.
In the last few months alone, FragDenStaat, through the IFG, uncovered documents about Economics Minister Katherina Reiche’s cronyism with billion-dollar companies revealed how civil society was investigated by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution and reported on the questionable funding of a CDU politician. In addition, there is research into unlawful funding stops by the Federal Ministry of the Interior, on illegal border controls and on CDU funding affairs. Due to scandals caused by the IFG, SPD Minister Franziska Giffey and a State Secretary in the Ministry of Education, among others, had to resign in the past.
CDU politician Philipp Amthor also had to take a hit to his career because of the IFG. Amthor had already tried to do so in the coalition negotiations a year agoto push for the abolition of the IFG. But after a civil society campaign with 400,000 signatures, he gave in. Now there is another attack on the IFG – but now jointly by the Union and the SPD.
FragDenState project manager and editor-in-chief Arne Semsrott in an interview on n-tv about the federal government’s planned IFG restrictions on July 5, 2026.
IFG abolition must be stopped
If the two parties achieve their goal, countless scandals would no longer be uncovered in the future. The government and possible future governments with AfD participation could pursue their dismantling of civil rights with less public scrutiny. At the same time, the risk of corruption would increase massively.
So far, around 330,000 IFG inquiries have been made via FragDenStaat from more than 100,000 people. The government now wants to abolish this right to freedom of information. The attack on the IFG and any reform must be stopped now. The IFG must not be touched!
Alexander Dobrindt’s Federal Ministry of the Interior will write a draft law in the coming months, which will be passed by the federal government after the other ministries have participated. At the end of the year, the SPD and Union parliamentary groups in the Bundestag are expected to decide to abolish the IFG. SPD MPs in particular should therefore be addressed personally in order to prevent this.
Support us in this! Write to the SPD members of the Bundestag now and make it clear to them that abolishing the IFG is out of the question!
The SPD MPs in the Interior Committee:
- Baldy, Daniel: [email protected]
- Castellucci, Prof. Dr. Lars[email protected]
- Demir, Hakan[email protected]
- Fiedler, Sebastian[email protected]
- Lindh, Helge[email protected]
- Nasr, Russia[email protected]
- Schätzl, John[email protected]
- Vogel, Ingo[email protected]
Text suggestion for email to MPs
Dear [Name des MdB einfügen],
I am very concerned to hear about the coalition committee’s plans to de facto abolish the Freedom of Information Act. The IFG currently enables everyone to gain insight into government documents and thus control the actions of authorities and the government.
In the coalition agreement, you and the Union agreed to reform the IFG in the interests of the citizens. The coalition committee’s current decision is the exact opposite: the SPD and the Union are planning a massive breach of the coalition agreement – and the biggest attack on government transparency in the history of the Federal Republic. The proposed changes would de facto put an end to freedom of information in Germany.
Inquiries would only be possible after proof of a “legitimate interest” and only for private individuals – and therefore almost never. In addition, inquiries could cost tens of thousands of euros in the future. Civil society organizations or press representatives are apparently no longer allowed to make inquiries, nor are people without German or Union citizenship. Authorities could more easily reject applications for further area exceptions; names of all authority employees – including those in managerial positions – should be consistently blacked out.
With the help of the IFG, numerous scandals and grievances have been uncovered over the past twenty years. It is the most important transparency tool for citizens and ensures public control of politics, authorities and administration. In times when trust in politics and the state is already declining, undermining that very law would send a catastrophic signal to the population and would lead to a further loss of trust.
Now it’s up to you to stop these plans. As members of the Interior Committee, you must defend the IFG, our right to freedom of information, against this frontal attack.
Best regards
[Name Absender*in ]
You can also publicly ask the SPD members of the Bundestag whether they will agree to abolishing the IFG.About parliamentarianwatch You can ask each and every MP a question directly: the question and answer are publicly visible to everyone and remain permanently documented. Even if you don’t answer, you do so publicly. Click here to go directly to the SPD members of the Interior Committee and to search for MPs in your constituency. D64 now has sample applications for local branches of the SPD and the Unionto contact the party executive.
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