Chancellor Merkel Party Backs Digital Push Saying Set Fears Aside

Germany’s governing Christian Democratic Union backed seizing the digital economy’s “big opportunities” after Chancellor Angela Merkel warned that the country can’t afford to fall behind.

Europe’s biggest economy needs nationwide broadband coverage by 2018, free wireless Internet in public spaces and the security of European data-privacy rules that “take people’s concerns seriously,” according to a CDU policy platform approved by delegates at a national convention in Cologne, Germany. The platform, which sets the CDU’s economic agenda for the years ahead, includes a pledge by Merkel’s governing coalition to link every corner of Germany to the Internet with at least 50 megabytes per second by 2018, a plan that studies say will cost at least 20 billion euros ($24.7 billion).