Old Questions – New Answers? A Few Notes on the New State Property Act

Let there be no illusions: in the legal regulation of state asset management - on account of the complexity of the state's institutional system, the differentiation of the assets managed and the necessarily contradictory system of objectives of the state's exercising of owner's rights - there are no perfect solutions. All proposals and decisions can only weigh advantages and disadvantages. With this in mind, the study formulates a few discussion points based on research experience from a researcher's perspective. Of these, it considers it extremely important to review the justification for state ownership based on a theoretical reflection of the scope and means of efficiently attending to public tasks and, taking this as a starting point, the filtering of the current portfolio and the extension of state property, a more detailed regulation of the aims, methods and evaluation criteria of asset management, as well as annual reports based on reliable records. The latter can only be credible if they cover all state property, take into account all related financial expenditures and handle changes to the composition of the property separately.