Berlin is giving its foreign and domestic spies offensive powers. Across Europe, governments follow suit, while EU institutions lack any spy service of their own.

Germany is pursuing the largest overhaul of its intelligence system since the second world war. The federal cabinet passed a reform package on 12 August 2026. It runs to more than 730 pages. For the first time, it would let the domestic and foreign services intervene operationally at home, reports Freshfields, a global law firm headquartered in London.

Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt unveiled the plan for the domestic services. Berlin presents it as a response to hybrid threats, sabotage, espionage, and cyberattacks. The services could penetrate hostile computer systems, shut down servers used by state-sponsored hackers, and even enter private homes to disable dangerous devices.

The Federal Intelligence Service, or BND, would also gain room for offensive action. Martin Jäger, the BND chief, says it will be able to hack opponents or use physical means abroad, without deliberately harming people, The Economist reports.

We need to be agile and fast. That’s one of our advantages as a small country. — Simone Smit, AIVD (the Netherlands)

Florian Flade, an investigative journalist at ARD who has seen the draft, describes the change without sugarcoating. “The BND will be a new intelligence service, an intelligence service that is no longer restricted to gathering information… it will be a service and authority that is allowed to act operationally.”

Old fears, new powers

Memories of the Nazi-era Gestapo and the Communist Stasi have long held the BND back. German spies cannot break into premises. Targeting the communications of priests, lawyers, doctors, or journalists has been off limits, says Gerhard Conrad, a former BND official. He highlights the shift this way if the changes pass. “We will go from being vegetarian to maybe flexitarian in a world of carnivores.”

Others see a bigger break. Constitutional lawyers call the expansion of domestic powers vulnerable and predict litigation once the law takes effect. Civil-liberties groups warn of a fundamental break with Germany’s separation of intelligence and police functions.

Thorsten Wetzling of interface stresses that the BND is already powerful. “The BND is anything but an insignificant intelligence actor. We know for instance that back in 2020 the BND was already collecting 1.2 trillion internet transactions per day at the DE-CIX internet connection hub.”

Data and deadlines

The reform also reaches into business. Car manufacturers would have to supply telemetry such as location, speed, mileage, and fuel-tank level on request. Digital platforms and payment providers face similar duties. All would be barred from telling customers. Digital firms have pushed back hard, citing EU data-protection law.

Mr Wetzling raises another concern. Current German law and oversight practice, he says, do not suffice to review how intelligence services use data bought from data brokers. The draft also names the BND as Germany’s civilian and military intelligence service, which, Mr Flade says, worries the defence ministry.

We will go from being vegetarian to maybe flexitarian in a world of carnivores. — Gerhard Conrad, ex-BND

Oversight is also being redrawn. The Independent Control Council might gain wider powers to authorise and review BND activity. The G10 Commission might lose its role at federal level. The domestic service could intercept some communications without the prior authorisation that earlier versions foresaw.

Time is short. The Constitutional Court’s October 2024 ruling gives lawmakers until 31 December 2026 to restore constitutionally compliant oversight. Parliament is likely to finish its discussions at the end of November. The Federal Council has until 18 December. Passage in time looks ambitious but likely.

The Dutch and Austrian way

The German shift is by no means alone. The Netherlands is moving in the same direction. In August 2026 the government proposed wider powers for its General Intelligence and Security Service, the AIVD, and its Defence Intelligence and Security Service, the MIVD. Some proactive operations would no longer need prior permission.

A draft law would give the services a yearly mandate to act against evident opponents. The government names China, Iran, and Russia among them. Simone Smit, the AIVD’s director-general, defends the approach. “We need to be agile and fast. That’s one of our advantages as a small country.”

Austria is widening its definition of espionage. Under current rules, foreign spying aimed at targets other than Austria itself can escape criminal liability. Under the plan, spying on international organisations headquartered in Austria, such as the International Atomic Energy Agency and the OSCE, would become a crime.

The plan would also target the recruitment of people by foreign intelligence services, including low-level agents. Harm would count if an act could damage Austria’s security, international standing, or economic interests. Authorities would no longer need to show actual damage.

Sweden, Italy, and Japan follow

Sweden will open a new civilian foreign-intelligence agency, the UND, on 1 January 2027. It will separate civilian from military intelligence. Carl Bildt, a former Swedish prime minister, recommended the move. Like Germany, Sweden failed to predict Russia’s invasion. Mr Bildt names the flaw. “The system captures capabilities, but doesn’t capture intent.” The new agency will produce national assessments from secret, commercial, and public sources.

Italy takes another route. A defence reform would make the Chief of the Defence Staff the ministry’s cyber authority and reorganise military intelligence into a Joint Cyber Intel Command. It would not create a new intelligence service. Governments no longer treat cyber as a niche technical matter.

The BND is anything but an insignificant intelligence actor. (…)  In 2020 the BND was already collecting 1.2 trillion internet transactions per day at the DE-CIX internet connection hub. — Thorsten Wetzling, interface think-tank

Japan, which neglected spying for decades, is rebuilding its espionage apparatus. This summer it launched a National Intelligence Council and a National Intelligence Bureau. It now wants a foreign-intelligence agency. A parliamentary committee in Canada is studying whether to create one, too.

America’s shadow

Doubt about Washington drives much of this. US President Donald Trump’s administration suspended intelligence for Ukraine in March 2025. The pause was brief. It still set off alarm bells. At least one ally is making contingency plans in case America severs intelligence-sharing, says a former American intelligence official.

Spy chiefs insist that ties with America remain strong. Yet Europeans are holding back some information, and an exodus of American intelligence officials has made long-standing relations harder to preserve. Mr Trump’s officials have privately threatened to eject Canada from Five Eyes. David Gioe, a former American intelligence officer, warns of a breakdown. “America would lose, but the Europeans would lose more.”

A former American intelligence official thinks allies may be watching America too. “Other than the Five Eyes, I would assume that most countries have at least some collection efforts aimed at the United States, and that during times of turbulence that effort will increase.”

Brussels does not hold the keys

Europeans are drawing closer to one another. “Co-operation among European intelligence services has reached unprecedented levels,” says Nicolas Lerner, head of the DGSE, the French external-intelligence service. In 2024, former Finnish President Sauli Niinistö proposed a fully fledged intelligence-cooperation service at EU level.

Spy chiefs say core groups of agencies now work jointly against hard targets such as Russia and China. One explains the logic. “The novelty is the concept of a common mission. We share the work according to who is the best athlete: we work one angle, you work another; and then we share the results.”

Some German lawmakers want a European version of Five Eyes. Kaupo Rosin, Estonia’s foreign intelligence chief, dismisses the idea. “I don’t see it really happening in the real world,” Mr Rosin said. “Intel is a national business, and nobody wants to have somebody else operate [it].”

The BND will be a new intelligence service (…) it will be a service and authority that is allowed to act operationally. — Florian Flade, ARD

The EU’s INTCEN has no espionage capabilities. It analyses intelligence that national services share voluntarily. Two senior national officials voiced scepticism to Brussels media. “We’re partners,” one of the senior national intelligence officials said. “But we’re not friends.”

Who controls the new power?

Sharing raw intelligence—the hardest part of co-operation—remains a struggle. Arndt Freytag von Loringhoven, a former BND deputy chief, is blunt. “Sharing at the level of NATO or the EU is almost impossible.”

Brussels has already tried and stumbled. An earlier Commission effort to set up an internal cell to collect intelligence from across Europe met a backlash from capitals and the European External Action Service. Juha Martelius, Finland’s intelligence chief, stresses that the EU treaties bar the bloc from directing national intelligence activities.

New tools bring new risks. Tom Field, writing for the International Institute for Strategic Studies, warns that artificial intelligence can amplify bias, encourage cognitive dependence, and give adversaries a fresh route to deception. He says governments must keep human judgement and oversight over intelligence analysis.

Every new power raises the same questions — who authorises it, who supervises it, and who can challenge it. Europe is unlikely to get its own version of the CIA. It is more likely to get powerful national services in denser networks, backed by stronger analysis in Brussels. The problem remains: to be a respected player, Europe needs a CIA.