BND leader wants to turn the intelligence service into a defence unit
On the occasion of the 70th birthday of the BND, its President Martin Jäger calls for a stronger intelligence service. Pressure is rising owing to wars and crises.
Berlin (dpa, d.de) – On the occasion of the 70th anniversary of establishment of the Federal Intelligence Service (BND), its President Martin Jäger called for the service to be fundamentally restructured. He said that the BND had to become considerably stronger in view of global crises.
“We must and will be Germany’s first line of defence,” Martin Jäger said at the ceremony that took place in Berlin on Thursday. He continued by saying that the foreign intelligence service aimed to confront its opponents more actively in the future, to upgrade the technology used and to reinforce its crisis resilience.
Jäger warned of “simultaneously happening wars and crises” as well as of hostile stakeholders that were a threat to national security. Espionage, sabotage and intimidation were “once more part of the standard repertoire used by our opponents, and Russia above all,” Martin Jäger said.
He added that the emergence of technologies such as artificial intelligence and quantum computing constituted a turning point that the service had to respond to.
Head of the Chancellery Thorsten Frei announced that a new law would be drawn up to create the conditions required for granting the service greater operational powers. Frei stated that the BND should be able to not only observe but to act in the event of acute threats, too. “We cannot watch ourselves become victims,” Thorsten Frei said.
The Federal Intelligence Service was established on 1 April 1956. The aim to reform the legal framework is likely to give rise to a broad debate in the Bundestag.
