Germany To Allow Police Shooting Falls Drone

Illustration of drones. (Wikimedia Commons/DLathamus)

JAKARTA - Germany will give police the authority to shoot down drones such as those that have disrupted airports across Europe, which some of the continental country's leaders attributed to the hybrid war launched by Russia.

The new law, which was approved by the cabinet on Wednesday and is awaiting parliamentary approval, explicitly allowing police to shoot down drones that violate German airspace, including shooting the drone down in cases of acute threats or serious harm.

Other techniques available for shooting down drones include using a laser or tracking signal to cut off control lanes and navigation.

"The drone incident threatens our security," Chancellor Friedrich Merz said in a post on social media platform X.

"We will not allow that. We are reinforcing the Federal Police's authority so that drones can be detected and handled more quickly in the future," Chancellor Merz said.

An anti-drone special unit will be formed within the federal police, said Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt, while researchers will consult with Israel and Ukraine as they are more advanced in drone technology.

Police will handle drones flying as high as trees, while stronger drones will be handled by the military, Dobrindt said.

The new law comes after dozens of flights were diverted or canceled last Friday at Munich Airport, Germany's second-largest airport, which caused more than 10,000 passengers to be abandoned due to the appearance of rogue drones.

Chancellor Merz said he assumed Russia was behind many drone aircraft flying over Germany last weekend, but none were armed and only carried out reconnaissance flights.

With this new law, Germany joins European countries that recently authorized security forces to bring down drones that violate their airspace, including Britain, France, Lithuania, and Romania.

Separately, EU leaders began to view Russia as a major threat to the security of their continent following Moscow's massive invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and their support for Kyiv.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last month called for what she called a drone wall - a network of sensors and weapons to detect, track, and neutralize infiltrating drones - to protect Europe's eastern side.

However, some say the drone involved in the recent incident could also be launched from within the European Union.

Germany recorded 172 drone-related air traffic disruptions between January and late September 2025, up from 129 in the same period last year and 121 in 2023, according to data from Deutsche Flugsicherung (DFS).

German military exercises last month in the northern port city of Hamburg showed how, like a spider, a large military drone firing a net into a smaller drone in the middle of a flight, entangling its propellers and forcing it to fall to the ground, where a robot dog ran small to look for possible explosives.

Shooting down a drone may be unsafe in densely populated urban areas, and the airport does not necessarily have a detection system that can report its sightings immediately.