Germany plans to boost its intelligence bodies; controversial law lifts post-war curb on spy agencies

The government of Germany on Friday has approved a draft law that aims to lift many of the restraints on the country’s spy agencies that were imposed during ...-war era. These curbs are being lifted at a time when the European nation is struggling with two attacks in a month that have managed to expose serious security gaps.

The controversial changes would still need approval from the parliament. The draft largely complies with a wishlist pulled together by the foreign and domestic intelligence services, which have long complained that Germany lags behind its allies and enemies. “We are turning our intelligence services into genuine secret services,” the interior minister, Alexander Dobrindt, told Bild newspaper, which called it a security “revolution” and “historic”.

“It is high time we positioned ourselves to be competitive and on an equal footing with our partner services around the world. This requires operational capabilities and active powers to tackle modern state terrorism and extremist groups more effectively,” he said.

The legislation is coming weeks after a deadly car ramming incident in late July at Berlin’s huge annual Pride parade by a German-born Islamist known to the authorities. This was followed by the discovery of a drone laden with explosives last week, near a Ukrainian cargo plane at Leipzig airport, a key defence transport hub.

Merz aims to boost German defence amid pressure

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s unpopular centre-right, centre-left coalition government has been facing intense pressure to demonstrate that it can modernise the country’s defence infrastructure. It is pertinent to note that the intelligence services reform plans have been in the offing for months and were repeatedly fine-tuned before being presented to the cabinet on Wednesday.

Under the proposed law, the federal foreign intelligence service (BND), which turned 70 this year and is run by a former ambassador to Ukraine, Martin Jäger, will gain new powers to confront emerging threats from state actors such as Russia and China. They can also take the help of Artificial Intelligence for the same.

Jäger said Germany must be able to show adversaries “that we’re in a position to do similar things so the other side also feels the pain”. Until now, the BND has overwhelmingly taken a defensive position, making it largely a repository for information with few operational powers.

The 700-page draft law entails that German spies will now have permission to manipulate or delete data known as “hack-back” cyber-attacks. Some of the other options include altering instructions on how to build weapons or rendering arms harmless during production.

While the use of force by intelligence personnel abroad will remain forbidden – keeping it far out of the league of the CIA, the Mossad in Israel or the DGSE in France- the agents will be able to carry weapons for self-defence more often without explicit permission. The law, which the government hopes will be in place by 1 January 2027, would loosen rules around data protection, widely mocked as exaggerated and self-defeating. Since the legislation is controversial, it could face court challenges mounted by its critics.