Germany’s judiciary is sounding the alarm, accusing state governments of inadvertently facilitating organized crime through chronic underfunding and a myopic focus on personnel costs. According to Bundesgeschäftsführer Sven Rebehn of the German Judges’ Association, the Länder are forfeiting billions of euros in potential revenue by prioritizing staffing expenses within law enforcement over broader investigative capabilities.
Rebehn argues that strategic investment in additional investigators, particularly those specializing in financial and economic crime, would yield a multiple return for the state. The current situation, he contends, actively benefits criminal enterprises by leaving them largely unchecked. A nationwide shortage of 2,000 prosecutors, coupled with a backlog of one million unresolved cases, severely hampers the ability of law enforcement to pursue complex investigations, often forcing them to settle for inadequate plea deals.
The association highlights a particularly concerning trend: organized crime groups, ranging from drug cartels and human trafficking rings to sophisticated financial criminals, are exploiting inadequately resourced and technologically outdated law enforcement agencies. Rebehn’s estimations reveal the scale of the problem; Germany’s annual money laundering figure sits at approximately €100 billion, with criminal schemes like Cum/Ex and Cum/Cum alone accounting for a staggering €40 billion in illicit gains. This, he declared, represents a “misguided” approach necessitating a significant strengthening of the application of penal law.
The federal government pledged €500 million last summer to support the Länder in creating additional judicial positions and undertaking digital modernization efforts. However, this commitment, formalized as the “Pact for the Rule of Law” was controversially removed from the agenda of the recent state premiers’ conference, with several Länder expressing reservations about the proposed funding. This hesitation raises serious questions about the commitment of state governments to adequately equipping law enforcement to combat the escalating threat of organized crime and the substantial financial losses it inflicts on the nation. Critics are now challenging the Länder to prioritize the enforcement of legal principles over budgetary constraints, warning of a potential erosion of the rule of law if the current trajectory continues.
