Perhaps the greatest marketing coup Germany ever pulled off is making sure that when people think of the Bundesrepublik, it is efficiency and big business brands that first come to mind, not the bureaucracy that Government ministers have acknowledged is impacting the economy.

When Vice-Chancellor Robert Habeck announced Berlin's financial forecasts, he put Germany on track to be the only major world economy to post negative growth figures for 2023. He also said it was high time to do something about all the 'red tape,' which he declared has a stranglehold on growth.

Habeck declared: "We need to solve our growth problems and tackle major structural challenges. We are suffering from problems like the skills shortage and excessive bureaucracy. And we are working on them."

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In Germany, it currently takes more than 120 days to get an operating licence for a new business. Compare that to fewer than 40 on average in Greece and Italy. It takes, on average, 50 percent longer to get a new construction permit in Germany than other members of the OECD group of "high-income economies."

In 2017 it was decided and put into law that by 2022, 575 government services would be available online. Only 128 were eventually delivered, and most of those, like housing benefits, were only partially digitized.

So why does Germany have this weakness for bureaucracy? Uli Brueckner, the Jean Monnet Professor for European Studies at Stanford University in Berlin, told CGTN that it is partly structural, partly historical.

"First of all, it's an old system and you don't replace institutions quickly because there's a persistence of institutions," he said. "Secondly, it's a federal system, which means everyone has a say in whatever it is. We do not have just one country like the small ones where you have a central government. But we have Länder, (states) and we have municipalities and all of this is a decentralization of power as a consequence of the totalitarian past."

Foreign workers

A big part of what the Vice Chancellor wants to do is make it easier for German companies to employ highly skilled workers from abroad. Someone who fits that bill is Natasha Owen Bermudez, an engineer and MBA graduate from Puerto Rico. Despite all of her documents being correct, she fell between the cracks of Berlin's Auslonderbehorde, or "Foreigners authority" application. A combination of mountains of paperwork and no one to answer any questions piled farce on top of frustration.

According to Bermudez: "We were in the Auslanderbehorde, and we asked why no one picked up the phone. I actually heard someone saying, 'Oh, we don't pick up the phone because if it gets out there that we are picking up the phone, everyone will call.' But that's the point of a phone. That's the point! Why even have it?"

Ultimately, Bermudez resorted to paying a lawyer to sort out her visa, which she recognizes is an option not available to everyone. "Even though it was a very expensive godsend, at least I have the privilege to be able to pay that lawyer. But when it came to the stress, the anxiety, the time consumption that it takes and just the toll that it takes on you, it was so relieving."

She is skeptical that change will happen as previous Berlin governments have also made big promises when it comes to making things easier for skilled foreign workers.

Bermudez told CGTN: "I see all this on Instagram or other social media. It's this like 'oh, we're making it easier and faster for immigrants to come here because we want skilled workers and we have a shortage?'

"I feel like it's all very fake because I myself have jumped through hoops. I have seen many friends have to leave because they cannot get their visa, even though they're very skilled, very intelligent people."

Despite the promises from the Economy Ministry, there haven't been any solid plans put forward yet to make it easier for German businesses to cut through the red tape to bring in those highly skilled, very intelligent people from abroad.

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