For the chancellor Friedrich Merz it is clear that the drones sighted, be it in the german airspace or from other countries of the Takeare “a safety hazard,” whether they are armed as if they are devices espionage. It also seems evident to him that behind the majority of these cases “is Russia“, as stated on German public television. The chancellor has taken on the task of reinforcing the security against drones, for which a Antidrone Defense Center.
The first step has been taken by his Minister of the Interior, Alexander Dobrindtwith the presentation of a bill that expands the Police powers and enables her to bring down drones in certain cases. A will be enabled new unit police focused on the fight against drones and a Defense Center which will come into operation, according to the minister’s plans, before the end of the year. This will provide the police “with the technical capabilities” necessary for this task.
This package of measures is being accelerated following recent sightings of critical civil and military installations in the land of Schleswig-Holstein, bordering Denmark. They coincided with the alarm of the Danish authorities due to the presence of drones over airports and military objectives, which led Copenhagen to ask for support from several NATO allies on the occasion of the European Union (EU) summit held in the Danish capital. The alarms in the neighboring country or in northern Germany were followed last weekend by the closures, for two consecutive nights, of the Munich airportin the south of the country.
Army intervention
Dobrindt, of the Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU), reacted to the pressures of the Land Government, his party’s domain, by advancing his goal of reform the Air Safety Law to enable Army interventionin case of serious threat.
The Defense Center will be in charge of coordinating the police forces of the federated states and that of the federal or central Government. Currently, action in the event of a sighting falls to the police, but in practice they do not have the logistics required to take it down. Yes, you can divert it, neutralize it or block its operating system to make it fall, as well as hunt it with networks. But, in the case of a large drone, devices capable of flying at high altitude or military, it does not have the necessary means, be they ground-to-air defense systems or even fighters. The Armed Forces, for their part, do not assume internal defense tasks except in cases of emergency.
For Merz, interference in airspace is not an ambiguous threat, but part of the hybrid war launched by Russia against the West. The preparation of the future Air Safety Law involves not only the Interior, whose head is from the conservative Merz bloc, but also Justice and Defense, in the power of its social democratic partner.
Subscribe to continue reading
