Decision of the federal government Disappointment about the end for Cyberagentur in Bonn

Bonn · Lord Mayor Ashok Sridharan says the federal city would have been the right location. CDU faction leader Gehrmann speaks of the federal government's quick fix. Reactions at a glance.

The federal government's decision to locate the planned cyber agency in the Halle-Leipzig region is met with incomprehension in Bonn. There were great hopes that the city would be awarded the contract, not least in view of the Ministry of Defence on Hardthöhe and the many institutions already involved in data security in Bonn and the region.

"We are disappointed, becausein our opinion Bonn would have been the right location", commented Lord Mayor Ashok Sridharan one day after the decision of the choice of location bythe Federal Government. According to the Mayor, Bonn had submitted a written application to Federal Interior Minister Seehofer and Defence Minister von der Leyen in October 2018 for the establishment of the Agency for Cyber Security.

Finally, both ministers, together with the chairman of the executive board of the Cyber Security Cluster Bonn, had previously emphasised the advantages of Bonn as a location with its convincing network of cyber security in Germany. Even if he did not know the reasons for the Halle-Leipzig decision, Sridharan does not see it as a decision against Bonn, "but rather as a conscious establishment of a new federal authority in East Germany".

The disappointment is also great in the town hall. There is growing concern that Bonn will increasingly fall behind. "Detached from this individual decision, which seems to have been taken as a quick decision, it becomes more than clear how important the activities are to conclude a legally secure agreement with the federal government on Bonn's future", stressed CDU parliamentary party leader Horst Gehrmann.

"The city will thus be deprived of an important building block to build up the cluster for cyber security in the same way as it has been driven forward in recent times," explained Hartwig Lohmeyer, spokesman for the Green parliamentary group. He criticised the state of North Rhine-Westphalia for not having done enough for Bonn in this case.

The SPD has the same opinion. "SPD faction leader Angelika Esch said: "This missed a real opportunity for the further development of our region". Werner Hümmrich, head of the FDP parliamentary group, expressed surprise: Because the region has enough skilled workers and the topic of cyber security is emerging as a main topic. Original text: Lisa Inhoffen Translation: Mareike Graepel

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