Who is responsible for Germany's drone defense?

The German government is holding a meeting on Wednesday to discuss defense against drones, after flights were suspended at the Munich airport twice in two days over reported drone sightings.

A debate has emerged within Germany's CDU/CSU conservative bloc about which division of the country's political structure is chiefly responsible for protecting key installations from drones: the regional states, "Länder," or the federal government, "Bund," in Berlin?


"We have to admit that certain divisions of powers between the Bund and the Länder don't really match up when it comes to threats to internal security," said Steffen Bilger, a senior figure in the CDU/CSU parliamentary bloc.

Bilger said police in southern states such as Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg had greater powers to respond to drone threats than police in other states. "I certainly think it could be possible to reach an agreement with the Länder to allow the Bund to take on greater responsibility," he said,

His colleague Alexander Hoffmann, the head of the Bavarian CSU fraction in parliament, said individual Länder were better equipped to deal with localized drone threats because of their regional familiarity.

"Every state is called upon to do its homework," he said. "Ultimately, drone defenses must be present everywhere."

Why doesn't the German military shoot down the drones?

In Germany, regional police forces, "Landespolizei," are generally responsible for dealing with drone threats, with the exception of airports and train stations, which fall under the jurisdiction of the federal police "Bundespolizei."

The problem, however, is that the police don't have fighter jets or surface-to-air missile systems, and that the German military, "the Bundeswehr," is not permitted to shoot down drones inside Germany.

According to the German constitution, the role of the military is explicitly to defend the country against external military attack.

As such, the army could only shoot down drones in a scenario comparable to that experienced for the past three years by Ukraine, which is targeted by Russian attack drones on a nightly basis.

"The shooting down of drones domestically with military means such as missiles would not be legally possible," Verena Jackson, a lawyer at the University of the Bundeswehr in Munich, told public television news service Tagesschau last week after Munich Airport twice suspended operations due to drone activity.

"This would only be possible in scenarios comparable to a full-scale war. The constitution is very clear: the armed forces may only be deployed when the constitution explicitly allows it," she said.