INSIGHTS

Germany's governing coalition plans to restrict the Informationsfreiheitsgesetz — the law that lets citizens request government documents. A coalition of 110 organisations, including Climate+Tech, says the changes would gut transparency.

Germany's Freedom of Information Law Under Threat: What the IFG Changes Mean

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Germany’s Freedom of Information Law Under Threat

On 7 July 2026, a coalition of 110 civil-society organisations published an open letter warning that Germany’s governing coalition plans to restrict the Informationsfreiheitsgesetz (IFG) — the federal Freedom of Information Act. Climate+Tech is among the signatories.

The letter argues that the proposed changes would not reform the law for the better, but effectively abolish access to government information for most people.

What is the IFG?

Germany’s Informationsfreiheitsgesetz (IFG) entered into force on 1 January 2006 (adopted in September 2005). It gives anyone an unconditional right to request access to documents held by federal authorities — no justification required today — subject to defined exceptions for security, privacy, and commercial confidentiality.

In practice, the IFG is one of the main tools journalists, researchers, and civil-society groups use to scrutinise government decisions. It supports evidence-based policy: access to the documents behind regulatory choices, impact assessments, and administrative guidance. Without it, debate stays at the level of claims rather than verifiable facts.

On legal design alone, Germany scores poorly in international comparisons: the Global RTI Rating (Centre for Law and Democracy / Access Info Europe) ranks the federal IFG 127th globally, with 55 of 150 possible points — criticising wide exceptions, weak oversight, and unclear procedures rather than implementation alone.

What the coalition plans to change

On 1 July 2026, the coalition committee adopted point 32 of its “Programm für Aufschwung und Beschäftigung” paper. The FragDenStaat press release — signed by 110 organisations including Climate+Tech — warns that the following plans would gut the law in practice:

  • “Legitimate interest” required — access would be limited to natural persons who can show a berechtigtes Interesse and cannot obtain the information through other legal routes. Today, no reason is required (tagesschau, beck-aktuell).
  • Organisations excluded — because only natural persons would remain eligible, NGOs, media companies, and other organisations could no longer submit IFG requests directly (tagesschau). Investigative outlets warn this would structurally undermine document-based research (heise).
  • Citizenship restriction under review — the coalition and Interior Ministry are examining whether to limit IFG access to German citizens and EU citizens resident in Germany. That would exclude everyone without German or EU citizenship — including long-term residents, third-country nationals, and people with permanent residence but no passport from an EU member state (FragDenStaat press release, tagesschau). Today, any person may request federal documents regardless of nationality.
  • Residency requirement — combined with the citizenship test, eligibility would likely be narrowed to people living in Germany who meet the citizenship criteria above.
  • Blanket redaction of staff names — authorities would routinely redact the names of civil servants, including senior officials, to protect them from harassment.
  • Removal of the €500 fee cap — fees would follow cost-recovery rules; complex requests could cost thousands of euros (beck-aktuell, Der Spiegel).
  • Stronger exclusions for sensitive areas — expanded protection for critical infrastructure, counter-intelligence, counter-terrorism, and scientific research.

The government frames these measures as bureaucracy reduction and protection of critical infrastructure. The signatories counter that existing IFG rules already allow sensitive security information to be withheld — and that the security argument does not justify the scale of the proposed restrictions. The BfDI commissioner Louisa Specht-Riemenschneider has publicly argued that the core principle of unconditional access should be preserved.

Why it matters beyond Germany

Transparency laws are infrastructure for evidence-based policy — the same principle that drives our work on EU Better Regulation. Good regulation depends on consultation, impact assessment, and access to the evidence policymakers actually use. Freedom-of-information rules are how civil society, researchers, and journalists obtain that evidence when authorities do not publish it proactively.

Without reliable access to government documents, it becomes harder to check whether regulatory decisions rest on sound analysis, whether climate and sustainability commitments are reflected in administrative practice, or whether proposed reforms deliver what they promise — questions we explored in our Better Regulation consultation response and related scholarly submission on emergency lawmaking.

The IFG is the national counterpart to those European safeguards: if it is hollowed out, the evidence base for German policy-making weakens too.

The coalition also points to a broken coalition promise: the 2025 coalition agreement pledged to reform the IFG “with added value for citizens and administration.” The current plans, they argue, deliver the opposite. According to the first BfDI Datenbarometer survey on freedom of information (2,500 respondents, January–February 2026), 83% want authorities to proactively publish information of public interest — not wait for individual requests.

A petition organised by FragDenStaat — “SPD, stop the frontal attack on freedom of information!” — had gathered more than 350,000 signatures within days of its launch on 3 July 2026 (per the coalition letter). During coalition negotiations in 2025, a FragDenStaat petition with more than 430,000 signatures helped block a Union proposal to abolish the IFG outright (FragDenStaat, Campact).

Who signed the letter

The initiative was led by organisations including abgeordnetenwatch, the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Informationsfreiheit, the Deutscher Journalisten-Verband, FragDenStaat, LobbyControl, Mehr Demokratie, Netzwerk Recherche, openPetition, Transparency International Deutschland, and Wikimedia Deutschland — alongside Climate+Tech and more than 100 other groups.

Arne Semsrott, project lead at FragDenStaat, put it plainly: “Whoever abolishes freedom of information weakens democracy — and that must not happen.”

Where to follow the story

For broader context on transparent governance and smart regulation, see our Research on Bureaucracy and Democracy project.

Climate+Tech signed the open letter as one of 110 civil-society organisations. We did not initiate the campaign; this post summarises the situation for an international audience.

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