CIfA Deutschland has issued a statement urging legislators to preserve early archaeological assessment, maintain professional expertise within heritage authorities, and resource the system adequately, so that planning can be accelerated without sacrificing irreplaceable archaeological heritage. The statement is in response to a series of reforms being considered, and in some cases adopted, across several German federal states aimed at cutting red tape and speeding up the planning process.
This is an English language summary of the statement, you can read the full original version here.
CIfA Deutschland statement on current legislative reforms to archaeological heritage protection in Germany
Background and key message
CIfA Deutschland, the German group of the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists, is concerned that several German federal states (Länder) are adopting or considering reforms that, in the name of cutting red tape and speeding up planning, would weaken key safeguards for Germany's cultural heritage. Initiatives in North Rhine-Westphalia, Lower Saxony, Saxony, Hesse and Bavaria differ in detail but have the same cumulative effect: step by step, archaeological heritage protection is being eroded.
CIfA Deutschland urges legislators to preserve early archaeological assessment, maintain professional expertise within heritage authorities, and resource the system adequately, so that planning can be accelerated without sacrificing irreplaceable archaeological heritage.
Because heritage protection is regulated by the federal states, a precedent set in one federal state can quickly influence reform debates elsewhere. The draft currently under discussion in Lower Saxony is therefore significant not only in its own right, but as an example of a wider pattern that could affect the entire system of below-ground heritage management in Germany.
We share the legitimate goal of making planning and approval more efficient and less costly. This must not be confused with dismantling safeguards that make development sustainable and heritage protection effective. Archaeological heritage is not renewable: once built over or destroyed, it is lost forever. Deregulation that causes such losses is neither sustainable, faster nor cheaper.
Targeting the wrong problem: archaeology is not the obstacle
Archaeological heritage in Germany is already under pressure from construction, land consumption, the energy transition, infrastructure, agriculture and climate change. At the same time, years of austerity have weakened heritage authorities just as deadlines and workloads have increased.
When authorities are slow, the political response is often to strip them of tasks and powers. This is a treatment for a mistaken diagnosis. In many places, delay reflects a lack of staff, resources and expertise. Where state heritage offices cannot fully carry out supervision, advice, quality assurance and monument recording, a downward spiral follows. Excavation control weakens, strategic management gives way to case-by-case handling, publication backlogs grow, confidence declines and calls for further deregulation increase.
Shifting responsibility from trained professionals to laypeople, merging authorities and shortening review deadlines will not solve the problem. The better course is more efficient structures and adequate staffing. Archaeology is not a significant cause of delay: despite skills shortages, the sector investigates thousands of archaeological discoveries each year that would otherwise be destroyed and forgotten.
Why precautionary safeguards exist
The value of precautionary protection mechanisms that act early follows from the very nature of archaeological heritage:
Most below-ground heritage is unknown when construction is planned. Unlike listed buildings, it lies hidden and is often identified only through preliminary investigation. Only a small proportion is formally registered, which is why most German heritage laws protect below-ground monuments automatically. If protection depended on registration, most of this heritage, including undiscovered sites, would lose protection.
The precautionary principle is therefore indispensable. Early assessment shows where archaeological evidence can be expected and supports a staged process.
- Evaluation: Survey, preliminary investigation and targeted test trenching establish the presence, extent and significance of possible cultural monuments before plans become fixed.
- Mitigation: Where conflicts exist, they are first avoided by adjusting the plans. If this is not possible, a sensitive construction method reduces the impact on the below-ground monument.
- Preservation by Record (Offsetting): Where destruction is unavoidable, it is offset through professional excavation, documentation, analysis and publication, so that the knowledge is permanently secured and archived for the public.
Almost every construction project can be realised using such measures. The benefit is twofold:
For developers, early clarification provides planning certainty and cost control. If archaeological issues emerge only during construction, delays, redesigns and unplanned costs become real risks. Moving conflict from planning to construction is therefore riskier and more expensive, not more efficient.
For the public, preventive archaeology produces knowledge that would otherwise be lost. For much of the past there are no written sources; archaeology is often the only evidence for how people lived. Its results reach wide audiences through museums, exhibitions and television.
The cultural benefit is direct: museum collections, from state institutions to local history museums, depend heavily on objects recovered through excavation. Weakening development-led archaeology would dry up a major source of material for research, museums and public outreach.
The ICE high-speed rail line between Erfurt and Leipzig/Halle shows the scale of this benefit: before construction, archaeologists documented around 15,000 features and recovered more than 400,000 finds across more than 140 hectares.
Foreseeable consequences of the proposed changes
The deregulation measures under discussion strike at several points at once:
Loss of the precautionary principle. If the requirement for approval is limited to monuments already on the register, protection is lost for most of the known heritage and for the entirety of heritage not yet discovered.
Loss of early involvement. If the duty to report and assess at an early stage is abolished, the specialist authorities can only intervene late – possibly only once the archaeological features have already been destroyed. Effective, forward-looking protection of cultural heritage is then no longer possible.
Loss of professional expertise. Reliable judgements about where below-ground monuments are to be expected require archaeologically trained staff within the authorities. If professional requirements are removed from the law without securing that expertise by other means, official decisions lose their professional basis.
Economic consequences for a systemically important sector. Preventive regulations underpin the polluter-pays principle and sustain a professional ecosystem of archaeology companies, surveyors, laboratories, conservation workshops and publishers. Private sector archaeological practices now undertake much fieldwork for construction, infrastructure and energy projects and provide a major employment market for archaeologists in Germany. Removing the triggers for this work would undermine planning certainty and endanger livelihoods.
The state's role as an example. Many state and municipal monuments, such as ruined castles, have cultural rather than commercial value. If public owners judge them only by profitability and allow them to decay, they weaken both their own example and the credibility of heritage protection.
International legal obligations: The Valletta Convention
Germany ratified the revised European Convention on the Protection of the Archaeological Heritage (the Valletta Convention) in 2002; it requires archaeological concerns to be integrated into planning and development procedures.
Article 5 requires archaeologists to participate in planning policies and development schemes, and requires consultation between archaeologists and planners so that harmful plans can be modified and sufficient time and resources are available for scientific study and publication.
Reforms that remove preventive evaluation and early archaeological involvement would shift conflict into construction and sit in clear tension with these obligations. In our professional assessment, that risks falling below the standard already achieved under the Convention.
Experience from other jurisdictions
Comparable debates elsewhere in Europe, particularly the United Kingdom, show that developers usually seek adequately resourced decision-makers and efficient, proportionate rules, not the removal of regulation. The established sequence of evaluation, mitigation and preservation by record creates predictability. What is needed is smarter regulation, not less regulation.
A way forward
CIfA Deutschland calls on federal authorities to
- Withdraw reform proposals that hollow out the precautionary principle and early professional involvement, including limits to registered monuments, abolition of early assessment duties and removal of professional requirements.
- Invest instead in upstream advice and adequately resourced heritage authorities, so conflicts are resolved during planning rather than construction.
- Improve efficiency through modern evaluation methods such as geophysical survey, predictive modelling, targeted test trenching and digital documentation, without compromising results.
- Discuss viable alternatives with professionals, including the private sector. CIfA Deutschland offers its expertise and international experience in support of heritage protection that is both effective and efficient.
Effective heritage protection and swift planning are not opposites. They succeed together when archaeology is involved early, competently and proportionately. This is precisely what CIfA Deutschland stands for.
