Germany expands the powers of its intelligence services to combat hybrid threats

Berlin. In light of the massive hybrid attacks Germany has been subjected to since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the German government has decided on a historic reform of its intelligence services – both foreign and domestic – granting them ‘operational powers’, that is, genuine espionage activities with the authority to act on the ground. The draft bill, a document of around 730 pages drawn up in August, was presented on Wednesday for its first reading in the Bundestag. The BND (Bundesnachrichtendienst), the foreign intelligence service, and the BfV (Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz, Office for the Protection of the Constitution), the domestic intelligence service, would be authorised, in the event of hybrid threats and cyber-attacks, no longer to limit themselves, as has been the case until now, to gathering and analysing information, but to react and take action digitally on their own initiative. In other words, they could decide on ‘active defence measures’ in cases of terrorism, extremism or disinformation by a foreign state. Both the BND and the BfV would be authorised to infiltrate enemy IT infrastructure, delete data, falsify information and carry out acts of sabotage. The approval of an independent supervisory board would still be required, but reservations have been expressed by the opposition and by some legal experts. This would constitute an unprecedented change to the architecture of state power, which would affect the clear separation between the intelligence services and the police that has been in place since the post-war period, in contrast to the situation under the Third Reich. The bill is now under consideration by the Bundestag and will be scrutinised in detail, with the expected amendments.

Explaining the legislation, Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt (CSU) said that the aim is to grant the security services greater powers to strengthen national defence against acts of sabotage and enemy espionage. In light of the rise in hacker threats and drone attacks, Dobrindt had already raised Germany’s threat level to ‘high’. Hence the decision to strengthen the security services. MPs from the CDU-CSU and SPD coalition expressed their conviction that the intelligence services’ powers must be expanded to combat sabotage, espionage, terrorist attacks and cyber-attacks (although the Greens have some reservations regarding the domestic operations of the BfV). With this reform, “we are moving from gathering data on threats to actively countering the danger of attacks and terrorism”, he explained. Chancellor Friedrich Merz was even more explicit: “Let us turn our intelligence services into genuine secret services”, which must be able to do “what other countries around the world have been doing for some time”, he said.

In practical terms, the intelligence services will be able, in the event of a threat to Germany, to sabotage foreign companies and infiltrate the IT systems of drone factories and chemical weapons laboratories. For the government, this represents a revolution in the defence system in the face of new cyber threats to national security. For critics, it is a breach of the dam. There is considerable consensus amongst the opposition regarding greater powers for foreign intelligence services, but far less so regarding domestic ones, as this would blur the separation between the police and the intelligence services that has been in place until now. The Greens criticise the fact that the BfV could intrude on private life, for example through smartphones: “If the state has access to citizens’ private lives, there must be transparency requirements; it cannot be done in secret,” said Konstantin von Notz of the Greens. For Die Linke, the Federal Republic, having learnt from history about the abuses of Nazism, has always maintained a distinction between the police and the secret services: the law, however, would erode the police’s powers. Criticism has also come from the AfD, which is itself under national surveillance by the BfV as a “suspected far-right case”: it argues that this blurs the line “between intelligence activities and operational police intervention”.

The law is a response to the numerous hybrid attacks – officially attributed to, or suspected of originating from, Russia – that have taken place in Germany, which is Europe’s strongest supporter of Ukraine in the war launched by Moscow. There is no official comprehensive classification, only individual figures reported by various institutions. The most serious incident, which could have resulted in a massacre, was the attack using a drone laden with explosives on 4 August at Leipzig Airport. In 2025, there were 320 suspected incidents targeting transport infrastructure. In 2026, there were 722 incidents involving drones and 1,034 sightings near critical or military infrastructure.

The positive aspects of the law outweigh the negative: equality in the defence of cyberspace, effectiveness in combating terrorism and extremism, and alignment with international standards. There is just one negative aspect, but it is a significant one: a blurring of the separation between police and intelligence powers.