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Germany: Intelligence services: new rules

01 May 1999

In March the Bundestag passed new regulations concerning parliamentary control of the intelligence services, which will come into force in June. The task will be concentrated in three special committees. A parliamentary control group (PKG) will control the Bundesamt fur Verfassungsschutz (internal), the (external) Bundesnnachrichtendienst (BND) and the Militarischer Abschirmdienst (military) and also their surveillance of letters and telecommunications. There will also be a special control commission for the latter purpose.

The government has to keep the PKG informed about the "general activities of the services and about all cases of special importance" and account for how the services spend their budgets. Each individual PKG member can demand this information. The PKG can also look at a service's files and database, visit the service's site, and receive information from civil-servants, who can contact members directly.

The government can only withdraw these rights when there is no other way to safeguard a source, or to protect the individual rights of third persons. Then the responsible minister has to inform PKG of the exact reasons. The PKG can also instruct external experts to lead special investigations. It can decide (with a two-thirds majority of its present members) to make a public comment on service affairs and, every two years, the PKG will give a report to parliament.

Besides the PKG, another committee will control the Customs Service's surveillance of companies which are suspected of delivering weapons or dual-use goods to third countries. Although the Customs Service cooperates quite closely with the BND on this issue, the control committees will stay separate. Proposals for making the services more accountable by the Green group - who would like to abolish them - were blocked by the Social Democrats.