Germany Approves Sweeping Intelligence Reform: New Powers for Spies
On August 12, 2026, Germany's federal cabinet approved a draft law that would lift many of the post-World War II restrictions on the country's two main intelligence services — the BND, which handles foreign intelligence, and the BfV, which handles domestic intelligence. The legislation runs over 700 pages and must still pass through parliament before it becomes law. The Guardian
Interior minister Alexander Dobrindt called the reform a security "revolution" and described it as "historic." The draft law largely follows a wishlist drawn up by the intelligence agencies themselves, suggesting the legislation reflects the services' own operational priorities rather than purely political direction from above.
The Federal Interior Ministry published its legislative page for the Gesetz zur Reform des Nachrichtendienstrechts (Law for the Reform of Intelligence Law) on July 6, 2026. The ministry describes the reform's guiding principle — or Leitmotiv — as the operational strengthening of the intelligence services, calling it a fundamental overhaul of the legal framework governing them. BMI
The most striking provisions concern offensive operations in cyberspace and physical sabotage. The draft law would allow German spies to carry out "hack-back" cyber-attacks — meaning they could actively break into hostile systems to manipulate or delete data, rather than only defending against intrusions. A proposed Independent Control Council would approve these intrusive operations, acting as a judicial-style oversight body for the most sensitive activities. The law also includes provisions for altering instructions on how weapons are built and rendering arms harmless during production, effectively authorizing targeted industrial sabotage. The Guardian; Reuters
The BND, which turned 70 in 2026, is currently led by Martin Jäger, a former ambassador to Ukraine. His appointment brought direct diplomatic experience with the Eastern European theater into the agency's leadership at a time when the government identified hybrid threats — activities that blend conventional warfare with covert tactics like cyber-attacks, disinformation, and sabotage — as the primary justification for expanded powers. Reuters reported in February 2026 that Berlin wanted to give its spy agencies broader authority to counter these rising hybrid threats.
The legislative push follows a series of security incidents on German soil. In late July 2026, a deadly car ramming at Berlin's annual Pride parade was carried out by a German-born Islamist previously known to authorities. In early August 2026, a drone carrying explosives was discovered near a Ukrainian cargo plane at Leipzig airport, a key defence transport hub. The Guardian
The reform also touches a long-standing constraint on the BND. German law currently bans the BND from spying on European Union countries, their citizens, or EU institutions, except in specified cases. This prohibition stems from 2016 reforms that tightened oversight after the BND's mass surveillance controversies — a period when the agency was found to have collected large amounts of data on both foreign and domestic communications. The restriction has long frustrated the agency. Reuters Whether the new 700-page draft law materially alters this EU restriction is not yet clear from available materials.
In the broader context, this reform amounts to the most consequential rewriting of the BND's and BfV's operational mandates in a generation. The authorization of hack-back operations places Germany in the small group of states that formally permit offensive cyber operations by their intelligence services, alongside the United States, the United Kingdom, and Israel. The weapons-sabotage provisions are more unusual still, blurring the line between intelligence gathering and active interference in the physical domain — something that echoes Soviet-era industrial sabotage doctrines more closely than Western intelligence practice.
The oversight architecture will be the critical variable. The proposed Independent Control Council, if it functions as a gatekeeper that reviews intrusive operations before they happen, could set a precedent for how democracies authorize offensive intelligence actions. But its independence, who sits on it, and how quickly it can operate will determine whether it serves as a genuine check or a procedural rubber stamp. The 700-page text gives parliament substantial detail to scrutinize, but the history of intelligence reform in Germany suggests that security incidents tend to compress parliamentary debate rather than expand it.
The wider backdrop here is a Germany that has spent the past decade incrementally shedding the postwar restraints that once distinguished its intelligence culture from those of its allies. The 2016 reforms tightened oversight after scandal; the 2026 reform loosens operational constraints after crisis. Whether the pendulum has swung too far, or not far enough, will depend on outcomes that cannot yet be observed.
