Electronic handling of administrative procedures; authorisation to issue an ordinance

(1) For the electronic handling of administrative procedures that serve to implement directly applicable legal acts of the European Union for which the Federation has legislative competence, or to implement federal statutes, the Federal Government is authorised, in consultation with the IT Planning Council, to prescribe by statutory ordinance not requiring the consent of the Bundesrat the mandatory use of particular IT components under section 2(6). The statutory ordinance may also regulate the use of IT components provided by the federal ministry responsible in each case. The Länder may derogate, by Land law, from the rules laid down in the statutory ordinance, insofar as they provide IT components suitable for operation within the portal network.
(2) The Länder are obliged to ensure the technical and organisational conditions for using the procedures prescribed under subsection (1).
(3) In providing the IT components referred to in subsection (1), open standards and open interfaces should be used, and open-source software should be used in preference to software whose source code is not publicly accessible or whose licence restricts use, distribution or modification.