Do Americans and Germans have different attitudes toward government intervention in the media?
Americans don’t understand our relationship to government. When we talk of democratic benchmarks, we’re talking about America. There’s a high level of freedom, of prosperity, of innovation. Even with all the traditions we have, we should learn from such benchmarks. That’s something we do very hesitantly. Kurt Biedenkopf [prime minister of the German state of Saxony] put it very intelligently. To paraphrase, there’s one big difference in the relationship of Americans to their government and ours. In America, the state has to justify any expansion of its powers. For us it’s the other way around. When we want to leave responsibility to the citizens, then there’s a long struggle to justify that to the state. Q: By some estimates economic activity related to the Internet is responsible for half of U.S. economic growth. Will Europe experience the same thing? A: That’s beginning to gain momentum in Europe. The economic use of the Internet, such as e-commerce, is off to a good start in Europe
