Quick Hits

• The Fourth Bureaucracy Reduction Act, effective January 1, 2025, simplifies requirements for giving written evidence of employment contracts, allowing now digital agreements for open-ended contracts while maintaining written form for fixed-term contracts.
• The EU’s AI Act, effective from August 2024, introduces regulations on AI systems, with initial provisions on unauthorized AI use starting February 2, 2025, and further regulations on general-purpose AI models and sanctions taking effect on August 2, 2025.
• The Self-Determination Act, effective late 2024, mandates that employers update relevant documents for transgender, intersex, and nonbinary employees upon request, with fines up to EU 10,000 for noncompliance.

Bureaucracy Reduction Act IV

The Fourth Bureaucracy Reduction Act (BEG IV) took effect on January 1, 2025. The aim is to reduce bureaucratic hurdles and relieve the burden on employers. Here is an overview of the most important points:

Simplification of the Formal Requirement of the Evidence Act

The formal requirements of the Evidence Act introduced in 2022 will be partially simplified by the BEG IV. Significant terms and conditions of employment and changes to them will no longer have to be made in writing (i.e., signed by hand) but can be drawn up and transmitted in text form. This means that permanent employment contracts can be concluded completely digitally if the employment contract is agreed in text form. In the future, an email with a scanned...

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