Germany’s government has approved a draft law that would remove many postwar restraints on the country’s intelligence agencies, including broader powers to collect data, conduct cyber operations and disrupt hostile activity. The legislation still needs to pass parliament, and the government hopes it will take effect on 1 January 2027.
The cabinet presented the plan after a deadly car ramming at Berlin’s Pride parade in late July and the discovery of an explosives-laden drone near a Ukrainian cargo plane at Leipzig airport the following week. The incidents have increased pressure on Friedrich Merz’s coalition government to close security gaps while protecting rights under Germany’s Basic Law.
What the draft would change
The more than 700-page draft would give the Federal Intelligence Service, known as the BND, and the domestic Office for the Protection of the Constitution, or BfV, greater scope to collect, store and analyse information for longer, including with artificial intelligence. Rules for obtaining approval for online searches and home surveillance of criminal suspects would also be loosened.
The BND could manipulate or delete data in “hack-back” cyber-attacks. Other proposed measures include changing instructions for building weapons, making arms harmless during production and blocking digital payments to low-level agents used by foreign governments for one-off operations. Intelligence personnel would still be barred from using force abroad, although carrying weapons for self-defence would be permitted more often without explicit approval.
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Why the government is advancing the plan
Foreign and domestic intelligence services have argued that Germany has fallen behind both allies and adversaries. Interior minister Alexander Dobrindt said the country needed stronger operational capabilities to confront state terrorism and extremist groups and to compete with partner services.
The government says threats have intensified since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. German authorities have linked agents associated with Moscow to alleged sabotage, espionage and hacking attempts involving critical infrastructure and military-equipment manufacturers. The BND, which has traditionally held a largely defensive role, would receive new powers aimed at threats from state actors including Russia and China.
Oversight and objections
The package would create an independent oversight board alongside the parliamentary intelligence control committee. At the same time, the federal data protection commissioner, Louisa Specht-Riemenschneider, said her office would lose oversight powers over the BND and criticised expanded access to public CCTV footage in Germany and abroad.
Green party intelligence spokesperson Konstantin von Notz said stronger BND powers were urgently needed but argued that the draft went too far, particularly in its treatment of the BfV. He warned that some provisions were difficult to reconcile with the separation between intelligence services and police, raising the prospect of court challenges from critics.
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