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Chancellor candidate Laschet (r.) With his security expert Neumann: "Strategic approach"
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A European FBI, a National Security Council and an offensive cyber defense - these are the key points of a security concept with which the CDU is campaigning. This Friday at 12 noon the paper will be presented in the Konrad-Adenauer-Haus. There will be Union Chancellor candidate Armin Laschet, Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer (CDU), the Parliamentary State Secretary in the Federal Ministry of the Interior, Stephan Mayer (CSU), and Peter Neumann, terrorism researcher and professor at King's College in London. As a security expert, Neumann is part of the so-called future team that Laschet recently introduced.
SPIEGEL has excerpts of the paper.
For the most part, it contains proposals that have been discussed for a long time.
»We want to think internal and external security together.
Current threats arise at home and abroad.
Combating them must therefore be thought of in a networked manner.
The national and European security architecture must therefore be built on this «, is the guiding principle of the paper.
Data retention required, National Security Council planned
The authors speak out clearly in favor of more powers in the digital space: »We need the source TKÜ
[telecommunications
surveillance
, ed.]
And we need online searches - both for hazard prevention and law enforcement.
And we need data retention, which in the fight against terrorists is often the decisive means to prevent attacks or to be able to arrest perpetrators. "
The concept also provides for the establishment of a National Security Council, which should be anchored in the Chancellery.
It was not only Laschet who had made the suggestion in the past few weeks.
The FDP promoted this last year.
Even the Greens are open to a discussion about expanding the existing Federal Security Council.
The proposal to turn the European police authority Europol into a kind of European FBI can now also be found in the Union paper.
It has been around for years.
If it were implemented, Europol would have significantly more competencies and resources.
The Bund Deutscher Kriminalbeamter (BDK) had spoken out in favor of the idea in the past.
Some politicians also supported them, such as the Interior Minister of Lower Saxony, Boris Pistorius (SPD).
The interior ministries in the federal states led by the CDU have so far been rather reserved about the proposal.
The experts from the CDU and CSU also call for the Bundeswehr to be deployed “in an emergency” to “protect people in Germany”.
According to the paper, it must be possible to use the specific capabilities of the Bundeswehr internally in particularly dangerous situations.
"Under the direction of the police and within the framework of established boundaries."
In order to strengthen the defense against cyber attacks, the authors propose that the Federal Office for Information Security be expanded into a central office for questions of information and cyber security.
Alongside the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and the Federal Criminal Police Office, it will form a strong third pillar of our cyber security architecture in Germany.
"In the past, security policy in Germany was often very fragmented and carried out in small parts," Peter Neumann told SPIEGEL.
"We want to develop a strategic approach - as it should be for a modern, serious, adult country."
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