With the change of government in Germany, the coalition’s ideas and ambitions regarding defence and security policy (secdef) are at the center of attention, not only from foreign actors but also in the German population. One element however, seems to get less attention than it deserves: the new policies regarding civil defence (Zivilschutz). I won’t do a full overview on the civil defence situation in Germany at the moment – rather, I want to quickly provide a bit of context on what the conservative Party CDU/CSU and the social democrats SPD plan in their upcoming legislation.
First of all, the parties do recognize that there is an unprecedented challenge to public security as a whole. Line 2619 states that the new government plans to counter this threat with a cultural shift in the whole sector. The word “Zeitenwende” is used here, which is interesting for the following reason: When Scholz talked about the shift in European security after Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine, he meant it in a descriptive way, here it is meant as a plan of action. Also mentioned are the new ways of funding, i.e. making more debts. The key idea is to enable public authorities to do more, with more financial options, more personal and more abilities. It is questionable however, how this can be achieved. The special budget of around 500b € is needed in other areas, mostly for actual military related costs. Funding related aspects are not really addressed in general: CDU and SPDs proposes implicate a staggering amount of expenses but no clear path on how this is going to work financially. Further on they write, that “We need a joint effort by the federal and state governments to support local authorities in coping with their civil protection, civil protection and disaster control tasks. On the basis of the German operational plan (OPLAN Deutschland), we are working with the federal states to ensure the necessary investment and long-term funding.”
The OPLAN Germany is a total defence concept that should include all branches of relevant ministries, organizations and political structures. It does however not exist at the moment, or is not public. What is deemed necessary is hence unclear. Nevertheless, it is clear that the investments that are needed to make civil defence effective on a broad scale are staggering. One needs to keep the multifaceted nature of this broad term in mind: Just supporting the THW (the German department for the technical aspects of civil defence) with more funding won’t bring you far. The fundamental problem is structural. After the cold war, costs were cut everywhere. This includes the administrative backbone of the civil defence apparatus. To build it back up in an effective manner needs first and foremost a coherent plan on what the goal is. We may get this in the OPLAN DE.
Another phrase that I want to highlight is the following: “We will strengthen civil protection and supplementary federal disaster control and use the new financing instruments for the total (overall) defense of the federal state and its countries.” We do run into the same issue here, where it is unclear what the concept of total (overall) defence is. In this context, and the usual interpretation of that phrasing, it seems to refer to the idea that national defence is obviously something that touches on more than just the federal armed forces. This is not surprising in itself, but it is important to note that this topic is being avoided in public discourse. Defending against a real military threat means much more than having soldiers in the field. Infact, it includes almost all facets of civilian life as well.
There are also societal issues that play an important role here. Instead of welcoming a more informed and protected society, especially the political right frames such actions – for instance the distribution of information material regarding personal stock of groceries and water – as a “state induced preparation for war”. That blackouts are a real possibility is soon forgotten. As with other elements of the coalition treaty, many ideas are extremely vague. I suspect that some of the different sections below were written by different committees which does not help with coherency. In general, what made it into this manuscript is only what could be agreed upon by all three parties. It is therefore fairly weak.
The new government also plannes a new national security council. This could speed up the decision making progress and potentially also help ministries to make the decisions necessary, but it remains unclear exactly how this new council will work and how much authority it will have.
What also needs to be mentioned is that civil defence is first and formost in the authority of the states, not the federal government. This makes centralized planning and change – as proposed here – hard. One reason is that the financial resposibility also lies with the states. Such questions are sadly often used as political capital for bargening and not in a manner of productive cooperation.
To put it more into perspective, what is said here does seem to be a higher awareness of the importance of civil defence and protection. It remains to be seen how these plans will materialize. I suspect that in comparison to other big tasks – that appear to be more important to many – the new executive will have a hard time meaningfully reforming civil defence. One particular issue I find important is the element of personal. I hold the opinion, that some kind of societal obligation like the currently discussed conscription will be necessary to fill enough of the positions that are needed for effective civil defence. We spend the last 30 years sellfing and building back infrastructure like bunkers and other elements. Whenever there is a larger than normal crisis, like a forest fire or flooding, we need to drive fire engines though the whole country because no constituency is able to cope with situations like these alone.
If we contemplate a scenario where the security integrity of Germany is under threat, the Bundeswehr won’t be able to help with such situations. And, it is highly likely that producing such developments would be high up on an action plan of a foreign threat. We do have to think these elements together. I fear, that the current situation will not improve by much.
I will come back to this when we get a bit more insight into what the OPLAN Deutschland includes.