Alarms have gone off in Germany due to repeated sightings of supposedly Russian drones, and evidence that law enforcement forces were not prepared. The Government of Christian Democrat Friedrich Merz announced this Wednesday that, to improve its technology in this field, it is seeking help from Israel and Ukraine.
Merz also wants to allow the Bundeswehr to shoot down these unmanned devices. It is a delicate proposal, because the Constitution severely restricts the possibilities of intervention by the federal army within German territory.
The coalition of Christian Democrats and Social Democrats is preparing two initiatives to strengthen defense against drones: a new federal police law and an air safety law. The first arrived this Wednesday at the Council of Ministers and, among other points, provides for the creation of a unit dedicated to research and development in anti-drone defense.
The German Government considers that innovation is very fast, that technology evolves in “a matter of a few weeks”, according to the Minister of the Interior, Alexander Dobrindt, and that Germany cannot afford to miss the boat. To avoid this, it has initiated “intensive exchanges” with Israel and Ukraine, countries that are both allies and, due to their war context, are leaders in anti-drone defense.
The incidents accumulate. In early September, Poland shot down several drones that had entered its airspace. The raids were repeated days later in Romania. And Russian MiG-31 warplanes were detected in Estonia.
In the following days, new drones were sighted in Denmark and, later, over critical infrastructure—military bases, a power plant, a government headquarters—in northern Germany, near the border with Denmark. On October 2 and 3, Munich airport, the second in the country, interrupted flights for two nights in a row when the presence of flying devices was detected.
“We suspect that (Russian President Vladimir) Putin is behind most of the drone flights,” Merz said Sunday in an interview with public broadcaster ARD. “We are not at war,” he said, “but we are no longer at peace, either.”
Germany is the European country that provides the most help to kyiv and is also the main Western supporter of the Israeli Government, after the United States. In August, Merz suspended exports to Israel of weapons that could be used in Gaza. This was a controversial decision in his country, but it did not exclude cooperation, intense since the 1950s, in other matters, including military matters.
Coordination Center
The new federal police law will make it easier to shoot down drones that represent an imminent danger. The proposal also contemplates the creation of a coordination center between the federal police and the regional police.
Today the federal police are responsible for the protection of railway facilities and airports, while the regional police are responsible for the rest. The underlying question is who shoots, under what circumstances and with what technology.
There is, in this discussion, something typically German. Because it affects federalism and the distribution of powers between the different levels of power. And because at the same time it forces the different sectors of the government coalition to harmonize, each with its own reading of what the Constitution allows.
The debate on the role of the Bundeswehr in the fight against drones is incipient, and has not been resolved by the federal police law. It will be included in the second initiative, the aviation safety law, which has not yet reached the Council of Ministers.
The federal army now has limited powers in protecting Germany against possible drone attacks within German territory (drones arriving from external borders are another matter).
The Basic Law of 1949 establishes that the mission of the Armed Forces is the defense of the country. They can only be deployed inland in exceptional cases, such as natural disasters, especially serious accidents, or in the event of an “imminent danger to the existence or liberal-democratic order of the Federation or a federated State.”
Due to the experience, until the end of World War II in 1945, of the Armed Forces acting in German territory against its own citizens, Germany takes extreme care whenever it comes to expanding the scope of action of the Bundeswehr. Hence, a debate has been opened about the flexibility of the Constitution, a debate that is reproduced within the coalition.
Minister Dobrindt and the Christian Democrats want to authorize the army to shoot down drones without having to modify the Basic Law, which would also require a qualified majority that is difficult to achieve with the current correlation of forces. Their argument is that the Bundeswehr has a capacity to shoot down the most sophisticated military drones that the regional and federal police lack, and that a legislative modification would be enough to allow the military to “help” the police when they need it.
The Social Democrats, led by the Minister of Justice, Stefanie Hubig, are reticent and prefer that the police be the one to assume the protection of the interior of the territory, according to the newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Some experts point out the logistical difficulties that would be involved in mobilizing the military for these tasks, and the risks to the population that would be involved in shooting down, in an urban area such as near an airport, an enemy army aircraft.
Unlike in Poland, they have not shot down any drones following recent sightings at Munich airport or other Western European countries. And the authorities, although suspicious of Moscow, have been cautious in drawing definitive conclusions. But everyone is now debating how to better protect themselves: within European territory and also at the external borders. Rearmament against drones has begun.
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