{"id":416136,"date":"2025-09-11T15:40:13","date_gmt":"2025-09-11T15:40:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/416136\/"},"modified":"2025-09-11T15:40:13","modified_gmt":"2025-09-11T15:40:13","slug":"merz-calls-for-supercharged-german-spy-service-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/416136\/","title":{"rendered":"Merz calls for supercharged German spy service \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Germany\u2019s security agencies have long depended on U.S. intelligence help to track terrorist threats, cyberattacks and espionage activities, while Europe now confronts a belligerent Russia and its allies.<\/p>\n<p>J\u00e4ger, 61, was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bundesregierung.de\/breg-de\/aktuelles\/pressemitteilungen\/dienstantritt-des-neuen-bnd-praesidenten-martin-jaeger-am-15-09-2025-2382878\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">appointed on Sept. 4<\/a> replacing long-serving chief Bruno Kahl. A seasoned diplomat, he previously represented Germany in Iraq and Afghanistan, and most recently served as ambassador to Ukraine.<\/p>\n<p>Since taking office months ago, Merz himself has become a primary target for Russian disinformation networks. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/germany-friedrich-merz-target-russia-disinformation\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Experts and intelligence officials link<\/a> the campaigns, including fabricated stories, fake websites and AI-generated videos, to his outspoken support for Kyiv as it resists the Kremlin&#8217;s aggression.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn Germany, we are now fending off hybrid attacks against our infrastructure on a daily basis; acts of sabotage, espionage, disinformation campaigns,\u201d Merz said during his speech on Thursday. He warned of &#8220;systemic rivals and adversaries&#8221; becoming &#8220;increasingly aggressive&#8221; in their tactics.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA paradigm shift in foreign and security policy\u201d is necessary to overcome such threats, Merz said. &#8220;We have very, very good security agencies in Germany. But our sovereignty in Germany and in Europe depends not least on us becoming even better.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Germany\u2019s security agencies have long depended on U.S. intelligence help to track terrorist threats, cyberattacks and espionage activities,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":416137,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5310],"tags":[2881,13507,4601,13071,2002,2000,299,1945,11070,1824,2348,6084,2817,2818,10470,811,1199,657],"class_list":{"0":"post-416136","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-afghanistan","9":"tag-cyber-diplomacy","10":"tag-cyber-espionage","11":"tag-disinformation","12":"tag-espionage","13":"tag-eu","14":"tag-europe","15":"tag-friedrich-merz","16":"tag-german-politics","17":"tag-germany","18":"tag-history","19":"tag-infrastructure","20":"tag-intelligence","21":"tag-intelligence-services","22":"tag-iraq","23":"tag-security","24":"tag-services","25":"tag-ukraine"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115186422499870035","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=416136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416136\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/416137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=416136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=416136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=416136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}