German spies granted sweeping new powers

Germany’s parliament has approved sweeping new powers for the country’s intelligence agencies, allowing them to hack and disrupt adversaries under specified conditions as the government seeks to counter espionage and cyberattacks.

The Bundestag passed the legislation on Friday by 308 votes to 190, with 71 abstentions. The governing Christian Democrats and Social Democrats backed the reform, while the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) and Die Linke, or the Left Party, opposed it.

The changes expand the role of Germany’s foreign intelligence agency, the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), and its domestic intelligence service, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), beyond gathering and analysing information to actively disrupting certain threats.

Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt described the legislation as a “reform of the century”, arguing that Germany needed stronger intelligence services to confront terrorism and hostile foreign operations.

The government says the reform addresses a gap in Germany’s security system, as intelligence agencies to date could sometimes identify a threat but lacked the authority to intervene, including when no other agency was responsible or able to act.

Under the new framework, the BfV would be able to take technical measures against serious threats, such as deleting stolen information from an attacker’s server.

For the BND, the expanded operational powers would allow interventions against threats abroad, including disrupting the servers used by state-backed hackers.

The approval comes just months after German authorities found an explosive-laden drone near a cargo plane belonging to the Ukrainian firm Antonov Airlines at Leipzig-Halle airport in August, linking the incident to Moscow.

Berlin formally accused Russia of attempting an attack at the state-owned facility, with Dobrindt saying Germany’s intelligence community had determined that a drone discovered at the airport was consistent with Russian technology.

Russia denied involvement, but the accusation led to the closure of the Russian Consulate General in Bonn and the Russian House, a cultural centre, in Berlin. Moscow responded by ordering the closure of a German consulate in St Petersburg and the Goethe-Institut.

“The reform is a direct result of the Zeitenwende [epochal change] and closely tied to Germany’s foreign policy challenges since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022,” Florian Bigge, programme director at think tank Korber-Stiftung, told Al Jazeera.

Bigge said the BND had publicly sought expanded powers since 2024 and that the approval came amid an “increasingly uncertain international order”.

“The security reality has changed fundamentally in recent years,” Bigge said, adding that “Russia is the main trigger: sabotage, cyberattacks and drones. Plus fear of US unpredictability and reduced US intelligence sharing.”

Dobrindt said Friday’s approved changes put German agencies on an equal footing with their European partners.

During previous parliamentary debates, ministers argued that the BND should not have to stand by when other authorities cannot avert a particularly serious threat, while experts speaking to the Bundestag said Berlin’s capabilities “lack modern intervention powers” compared with their Western counterparts.

Still, the reform has drawn objections from opposition lawmakers, particularly Die Linke, who expressed concern about privacy and the historic separation between intelligence gathering and police work.

In a parliamentary motion opposing the bill, Die Linke argued that key provisions failed to meet constitutional standards for intrusive surveillance. The party has warned that the sweeping powers would effectively create a German secret police force, a prospect with particular historical resonance for citizens who lived under the Stasi, East Germany’s secret police between 1950 and 1990.

In September, Die Linke won the Berlin city-state parliament election with 25.7 percent of the vote, allowing the party to appoint a mayor after forming a coalition government.

Thus far, criticism has come from lawmakers and civil liberties groups, Bigge said, adding that “a broader public debate may still come” as the state expands what it can do abroad.

“Germans want more engagement,” Bigge said, but caveated that “they mean diplomacy”.

The main provisions are scheduled to take effect on December 31, pending completion of the legislative process.