Thomas Röwekamp, the Chairman of the Defence Committee in the Bundestag and a member of the CDU, has called for the centralisation of responsibility for drone defence to be placed under the Federal Ministry of the Interior.
He stated to the “Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland” that existing findings confirm the urgency of finding fast, new responses to the threat posed by drones to civil infrastructure. He noted that a major incident was only averted recently due to the chance and careful actions of a bus driver.
Röwekamp continued by arguing that a centralized authority is necessary instead of relying on numerous decentralized federal aviation safety authorities, alongside adequate equipment capable of reliably combating the diverse threats. He suggested that this central authority should reside within the Federal Ministry of the Interior or with the Federal Police.
Currently, while the Federal Police are responsible for managing drone defence at airports, the country also has the Joint Drone Defence Center (GDAZ), which involves both federal and state governments, established late last year. The Armed Forces (Bundeswehr) are only intended to intervene when all other institutions are technically overwhelmed. Despite these arrangements, a single, central governing body does not exist.
