The Greens are early risers. At 7:30 a.m., their conference call of the leadership from the federal government begins, always including group leader Terry Reintke from the European Parliament and the spokesman of the German group of the Greens/EFA, Rasmus Andresen. This close involvement of the topics with European policy reference distinguishes the Greens from the other parties, Markus Grabitz knows the reasons.
Several months after the sabotage of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines in September, those responsible have still not been found. The question is whether such an attack can serve as a model for similar attacks – after all, the undersea data cables lie unprotected at the bottom of the sea. Lisa-Martina Klein spoke with experts about how the infrastructure of the information age can be better protected against attacks.
Klaus Müller has taken on his new role at the most difficult moment imaginable. He just started his work as President of the Federal Network Agency. From 2014 to February 2022, he was a board member and representative of the Federation of German Consumer Organisations, and from that time, he still knows many colleagues from other federal agencies. These interactions make it easier for him to master one of this winter’s challenges – avoiding gas shortages. Constantin Eckner spoke with him.
The working day for the Green leadership starts early: Coordinated by party headquarters, the heads of the party and parliamentary group and the Green federal ministers get together by phone every morning, usually at 7:30. Terry Reintke, head of the Green Group in the European Parliament, and Rasmus Andresen, head of the German Green Party, are also present. The group consults on all current topics. In the call, not only topics related to European policy are called up – but they are naturally included.
And that’s what distinguishes the Greens from the SPD and the CDU/CSU. In the SPD, European topics are discussed on an ad hoc basis. To discuss the long lines in European policy, Katarina Barley, the party’s European Affairs Officer, convenes a roundtable of seven in Berlin’s Willy Brandt House every four to six weeks. Among the participants: Jens Geier, the head of the German SPD Members of the European Parliament, Jörg Kukies, State Secretary in the Chancellery, and Achim Post, Vice Chairman of the Bundestag parliamentary group.
In the CDU/CSU, on the other hand, the coordination between Berlin and Brussels runs through Daniel Caspary. The head of the German CDU/CSU Members of the European Parliament is a member of the CDU presidium through this function and takes part in the bi-weekly meetings of the body.
The daily involvement of EP representatives, established in 2014, illustrates how important the Greens take the EU level. Long before Ursula von der Leyen’s Green Deal, they recognized that their environmental policy agenda could be pushed through via Brussels. In workshops, the party discussed what organizational structures it needed for this – the result, in addition to the morning calls, was the new post of European policy coordinator on the federal executive committee.
In the negotiations for the traffic light coalition, the Greens also secured the right to propose the next German EU Commissioner – provided von der Leyen does not run for a second term. With the Foreign Office and the Ministry for Economic Affairs, frontrunners Annalena Baerbock and Robert Habeck also secured the two houses responsible for coordinating Germany’s European policy. Habeck also brought Franziska Brantner and Sven Giegold, two experienced former MEPs, into leadership positions. Both coordinate with their party colleagues in the European Parliament at irregular intervals.
With Steffi Lemke and Cem Özdemir, the party also holds the environment and agriculture portfolios. In the hot phase of negotiations on the Fit for 55 package, they were thus well positioned – even if contentious issues such as the phasing out of the internal combustion engine had to be resolved at the highest coalition level.
On the fringes of the Bundesrat meetings, there is another format in which the party also coordinates European issues: On the eve of the Bundesrat session, Green Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann invites guests to the “G-Kamin” (lit. G-fireplace) at the Baden-Württemberg state representation in Tiergarten. G-Kamin stands for green fireplace and is derived from the “Kaminrunde” (fireplace round), the format in which the CDU-led states meet before the Bundesrat session.
At the G-Kamin, Kretschmann meets with his party’s deputy prime ministers, top Green party and parliamentary group leaders at the federal level, and the Green federal ministers. Reintke and Andresen are also present. In addition, there is still the Green “European policy switch”: The Green Ministers for Europe and Secretaries of State for Europe of the state governments confer before the Conference of European Ministers meets.
In Brussels, the Greens are gradually increasing their influence in state representations. The state representations are not involved in EU legislation, but they have an important function as listening posts: to learn about the Commission’s plans for legislation at an early stage, they are irreplaceable. The Saxony representation is headed by Stefanie Sift, a Green who used to be a staff member of an MEP. The party is a junior partner in Saxony’s government and provides the Minister for Europe, Katja Meier.
Baden-Württemberg’s Prime Minister Kretschmann continues to work with Bodo Lehmann (CDU) at the helm of his state representation in Brussels, even though the CDU is in opposition in Stuttgart. Kretschmann’s confidant, European State Secretary Florian Hassler, is politically responsible. Kretschmann has also installed Winfried Schröder, a party friend, as head of the prime minister’s office in Brussels, in close proximity to Lehmann.
The NRW state government is in turn headed by the Green Rainer Steffens, who already held the post under the Red-Green coalition. In Düsseldorf, the coalition agreement is that the CDU, as the largest governing party, will provide the Minister for Europe in the person of Nathanael Liminski. In return, the Greens appoint the leadership of the Brussels representation.
Hesse also has a Green junior partner in the government. The state representation in Brussels has long been headed by Friedrich von Heusinger (CDU). The Green state ministers send specialist officials to observe EU policy, as is also customary in other states. Economy Minister Terik Al-Wazir has sent Felix Holefleisch – a brother-in-law of Annalena Baerbock. With Till Hoppe
Fears are growing that undersea data cables and landing points are increasingly becoming targets of hybrid warfare. Since the attacks on the Nord Stream pipelines, politicians, companies and the military have been intensively discussing the possible targeted destruction of undersea cables. Technically, these infrastructures of the information age lie unprotected at the bottom of the sea.
Experts believe that attacks on the seabed are increasingly likely. More and more nations are incorporating seabed warfare into their military doctrines, explains Ferdinand Alexander Gehringer, a cybersecurity expert at the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS), in a recently published paper. “On top of that, Russian, Chinese and American militaries are developing techniques to destroy infrastructure at depths of 6,000 meters,” Gehringer says.
Russia’s naval fleet, for example, has at least two submarines that can be used as mother ships and two unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) that can destroy cables on the seabed with grappling arms. The US is developing autonomous, armed robotic submarines. And China has already unveiled an unmanned underwater vehicle as well (HSU001). The upgrade race has just begun in this area. But who will protect the cables from attack?
Gehringer argues that NATO should be involved at a military level. The Joint Force Command Norfolk in the eastern US, responsible, among other things, for protecting undersea infrastructure, is not enough, he said. “Such a project must be a task for the whole of NATO.”
There are already concrete ideas on this from the political arena. Before the Berlin Security Conference at the end of November, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Støre spoke out in favor of a NATO coordination center from which gas pipelines and Internet lines on the seabed would be protected.
Scholz called for efficient coordination between the police and the military, and actors such as the European Union and private-sector companies must be well integrated. Norway is Germany’s most important energy supplier, and Germany’s ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems (TKMS) has been supplying Norway with its Class 212 submarines for years.
In Gehringer’s view, it would also be important for NATO member states to consider the underwater infrastructure from the outset when equipping themselves. According to the paper, he sees a need for the Bundeswehr to double its submarine fleet, from six to twelve, and to add autonomous underwater vehicles such as the “Seekatze” (lit. “Sea Cat”). According to Gehringer, there would be further advantages with the inclusion of NATO: “This would give NATO a permanent task, there would be uniform exercises, more research and a coordinated seabed warfare strategy.”
The EU also plays an important role in protecting undersea structures. Nearly 170 high-speed data cables reach the EU mainland on their way through the seas; Germany currently has four landing points with eight cables. The route primarily connected to Marseille along the Suez Canal, which links Europe with Asia, is considered particularly neuralgic.
“Marseille plays a major role for data traffic in Europe, Germany has few landing points. But that doesn’t mean that responsibility should therefore lie mainly with France. Rather, we need a shared sense of responsibility for an infrastructure on which we all depend, similar to the Nord Stream pipelines,” according to Gehringer.
The protection rules for IT infrastructure were revised just last year with the NIS2 directive. MEP Bart Groothuis (Renew) negotiated it for the Parliament and calls for close dovetailing across member states, the EU and NATO: “We need insight into what happened: What exactly happened, who was behind it, what was the reason this internet cable was cut.”
Groothuis, who was head of the cyber defense department at the Dutch Ministry of Defense before he became a member of parliament in Brussels, says there must be a central office for this purpose. The coast guards must also be closely integrated into the system.
“In the digital area, we are thus on the way to better protection,” Gehringer attests to the EU. With the Critical Infrastructure Protection (CER) Directive, the member states must now also improve the physical protection of critical infrastructures. In Germany, this is to be achieved by the new law proposed by Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser (SPD) in 2023, for which initial key points were approved by the cabinet in December. “The KRITIS law is also a first, right step, but it shows that we are just beginning to deal with critical infrastructure protection in rudimentary ways,” says Gehringer.
By his own admission, Klaus Müller has been “in crisis mode” for a long time. He took up his new post on March 1 – Russia had just invaded Ukraine. “It was clear right away that energy supply would be the most urgent issue. A crisis was looming,” says the 51-year-old. As the new president of the Federal Network Agency, he originally wanted to take care of a booster for renewable energies, the expansion of the power grid and a lot more. But the biggest challenge at the moment, of course, is to avoid a gas shortage and get the country safely through the winter.
Müller worked in the early 90s as environment and agriculture minister for the state of Schleswig-Holstein in the cabinet of Heide Simonis. After his time in state politics, the Bündnis 90/Die Grünen (Greens) member turned his attention to consumer protection and served as a board member and representative of the Federation of German Consumer Organizations from 2014 to February 2022. This was followed by a move to the Federal Network Agency and, thus, the assumption of another high-ranking office in the Federal Republic.
Asked to what extent he benefits from his previous experience in consumer protection, Müller replies: “For me, competition and fair market conditions are the pillars of consumer protection. That’s where we as the consumer advice center have always looked at the Federal Network Agency with a fascinated eye. Civil society consumer protection has its role and so does regulatory consumer protection. I think the two can complement each other really well.”
During the time he worked for the consumer centers, up to 800,000 complaints were received annually. Where these had a structural relevance, they had been passed on to the supervisory authorities. That’s why Müller has been in frequent contact with the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority, the Federal Office for Information Security, the Federal Cartel Office and the Federal Network Agency in recent years. “As the head of the Federal Network Agency, I naturally also have to deal with other authorities permanently. It is perhaps an advantage that I am already familiar with this kind of cooperation,” says Müller.
The agency is close to political processes; after all, it implements laws passed by the German Bundestag. One example is the expansion of the power grid. Müller is no stranger to these processes from his time as a state minister. Overall, the 51-year-old sees the Federal Network Agency not just as an authority that works through a program according to the letters and commas. “Its task is to point out quite clearly when things can be done more efficiently, better and more sustainable. That is also my understanding of a modern agency,” says Müller.
In addition, there is the European dimension. The Federal Network Agency is in constant exchange with other European regulatory authorities through many channels. The current situation has so far allowed Müller only a limited number of inaugural meetings, he recounts, but despite and precisely because of the current situation, he says it is important for him to be in contact with sister authorities himself. “We are talking about networks that extend beyond national borders. We are networked, connected with other countries, and therefore we are in exchange with each other. Now, when it comes to distributing the gas fairly, it shows how important cooperation is. We get gas from neighboring countries, for example the Netherlands, France and Belgium. Conversely, we can supply electricity to France or gas to southeastern Europe,” Müller explains. Constantin Eckner
The Greens are early risers. At 7:30 a.m., their conference call of the leadership from the federal government begins, always including group leader Terry Reintke from the European Parliament and the spokesman of the German group of the Greens/EFA, Rasmus Andresen. This close involvement of the topics with European policy reference distinguishes the Greens from the other parties, Markus Grabitz knows the reasons.
Several months after the sabotage of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines in September, those responsible have still not been found. The question is whether such an attack can serve as a model for similar attacks – after all, the undersea data cables lie unprotected at the bottom of the sea. Lisa-Martina Klein spoke with experts about how the infrastructure of the information age can be better protected against attacks.
Klaus Müller has taken on his new role at the most difficult moment imaginable. He just started his work as President of the Federal Network Agency. From 2014 to February 2022, he was a board member and representative of the Federation of German Consumer Organisations, and from that time, he still knows many colleagues from other federal agencies. These interactions make it easier for him to master one of this winter’s challenges – avoiding gas shortages. Constantin Eckner spoke with him.
The working day for the Green leadership starts early: Coordinated by party headquarters, the heads of the party and parliamentary group and the Green federal ministers get together by phone every morning, usually at 7:30. Terry Reintke, head of the Green Group in the European Parliament, and Rasmus Andresen, head of the German Green Party, are also present. The group consults on all current topics. In the call, not only topics related to European policy are called up – but they are naturally included.
And that’s what distinguishes the Greens from the SPD and the CDU/CSU. In the SPD, European topics are discussed on an ad hoc basis. To discuss the long lines in European policy, Katarina Barley, the party’s European Affairs Officer, convenes a roundtable of seven in Berlin’s Willy Brandt House every four to six weeks. Among the participants: Jens Geier, the head of the German SPD Members of the European Parliament, Jörg Kukies, State Secretary in the Chancellery, and Achim Post, Vice Chairman of the Bundestag parliamentary group.
In the CDU/CSU, on the other hand, the coordination between Berlin and Brussels runs through Daniel Caspary. The head of the German CDU/CSU Members of the European Parliament is a member of the CDU presidium through this function and takes part in the bi-weekly meetings of the body.
The daily involvement of EP representatives, established in 2014, illustrates how important the Greens take the EU level. Long before Ursula von der Leyen’s Green Deal, they recognized that their environmental policy agenda could be pushed through via Brussels. In workshops, the party discussed what organizational structures it needed for this – the result, in addition to the morning calls, was the new post of European policy coordinator on the federal executive committee.
In the negotiations for the traffic light coalition, the Greens also secured the right to propose the next German EU Commissioner – provided von der Leyen does not run for a second term. With the Foreign Office and the Ministry for Economic Affairs, frontrunners Annalena Baerbock and Robert Habeck also secured the two houses responsible for coordinating Germany’s European policy. Habeck also brought Franziska Brantner and Sven Giegold, two experienced former MEPs, into leadership positions. Both coordinate with their party colleagues in the European Parliament at irregular intervals.
With Steffi Lemke and Cem Özdemir, the party also holds the environment and agriculture portfolios. In the hot phase of negotiations on the Fit for 55 package, they were thus well positioned – even if contentious issues such as the phasing out of the internal combustion engine had to be resolved at the highest coalition level.
On the fringes of the Bundesrat meetings, there is another format in which the party also coordinates European issues: On the eve of the Bundesrat session, Green Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann invites guests to the “G-Kamin” (lit. G-fireplace) at the Baden-Württemberg state representation in Tiergarten. G-Kamin stands for green fireplace and is derived from the “Kaminrunde” (fireplace round), the format in which the CDU-led states meet before the Bundesrat session.
At the G-Kamin, Kretschmann meets with his party’s deputy prime ministers, top Green party and parliamentary group leaders at the federal level, and the Green federal ministers. Reintke and Andresen are also present. In addition, there is still the Green “European policy switch”: The Green Ministers for Europe and Secretaries of State for Europe of the state governments confer before the Conference of European Ministers meets.
In Brussels, the Greens are gradually increasing their influence in state representations. The state representations are not involved in EU legislation, but they have an important function as listening posts: to learn about the Commission’s plans for legislation at an early stage, they are irreplaceable. The Saxony representation is headed by Stefanie Sift, a Green who used to be a staff member of an MEP. The party is a junior partner in Saxony’s government and provides the Minister for Europe, Katja Meier.
Baden-Württemberg’s Prime Minister Kretschmann continues to work with Bodo Lehmann (CDU) at the helm of his state representation in Brussels, even though the CDU is in opposition in Stuttgart. Kretschmann’s confidant, European State Secretary Florian Hassler, is politically responsible. Kretschmann has also installed Winfried Schröder, a party friend, as head of the prime minister’s office in Brussels, in close proximity to Lehmann.
The NRW state government is in turn headed by the Green Rainer Steffens, who already held the post under the Red-Green coalition. In Düsseldorf, the coalition agreement is that the CDU, as the largest governing party, will provide the Minister for Europe in the person of Nathanael Liminski. In return, the Greens appoint the leadership of the Brussels representation.
Hesse also has a Green junior partner in the government. The state representation in Brussels has long been headed by Friedrich von Heusinger (CDU). The Green state ministers send specialist officials to observe EU policy, as is also customary in other states. Economy Minister Terik Al-Wazir has sent Felix Holefleisch – a brother-in-law of Annalena Baerbock. With Till Hoppe
Fears are growing that undersea data cables and landing points are increasingly becoming targets of hybrid warfare. Since the attacks on the Nord Stream pipelines, politicians, companies and the military have been intensively discussing the possible targeted destruction of undersea cables. Technically, these infrastructures of the information age lie unprotected at the bottom of the sea.
Experts believe that attacks on the seabed are increasingly likely. More and more nations are incorporating seabed warfare into their military doctrines, explains Ferdinand Alexander Gehringer, a cybersecurity expert at the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS), in a recently published paper. “On top of that, Russian, Chinese and American militaries are developing techniques to destroy infrastructure at depths of 6,000 meters,” Gehringer says.
Russia’s naval fleet, for example, has at least two submarines that can be used as mother ships and two unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) that can destroy cables on the seabed with grappling arms. The US is developing autonomous, armed robotic submarines. And China has already unveiled an unmanned underwater vehicle as well (HSU001). The upgrade race has just begun in this area. But who will protect the cables from attack?
Gehringer argues that NATO should be involved at a military level. The Joint Force Command Norfolk in the eastern US, responsible, among other things, for protecting undersea infrastructure, is not enough, he said. “Such a project must be a task for the whole of NATO.”
There are already concrete ideas on this from the political arena. Before the Berlin Security Conference at the end of November, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Støre spoke out in favor of a NATO coordination center from which gas pipelines and Internet lines on the seabed would be protected.
Scholz called for efficient coordination between the police and the military, and actors such as the European Union and private-sector companies must be well integrated. Norway is Germany’s most important energy supplier, and Germany’s ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems (TKMS) has been supplying Norway with its Class 212 submarines for years.
In Gehringer’s view, it would also be important for NATO member states to consider the underwater infrastructure from the outset when equipping themselves. According to the paper, he sees a need for the Bundeswehr to double its submarine fleet, from six to twelve, and to add autonomous underwater vehicles such as the “Seekatze” (lit. “Sea Cat”). According to Gehringer, there would be further advantages with the inclusion of NATO: “This would give NATO a permanent task, there would be uniform exercises, more research and a coordinated seabed warfare strategy.”
The EU also plays an important role in protecting undersea structures. Nearly 170 high-speed data cables reach the EU mainland on their way through the seas; Germany currently has four landing points with eight cables. The route primarily connected to Marseille along the Suez Canal, which links Europe with Asia, is considered particularly neuralgic.
“Marseille plays a major role for data traffic in Europe, Germany has few landing points. But that doesn’t mean that responsibility should therefore lie mainly with France. Rather, we need a shared sense of responsibility for an infrastructure on which we all depend, similar to the Nord Stream pipelines,” according to Gehringer.
The protection rules for IT infrastructure were revised just last year with the NIS2 directive. MEP Bart Groothuis (Renew) negotiated it for the Parliament and calls for close dovetailing across member states, the EU and NATO: “We need insight into what happened: What exactly happened, who was behind it, what was the reason this internet cable was cut.”
Groothuis, who was head of the cyber defense department at the Dutch Ministry of Defense before he became a member of parliament in Brussels, says there must be a central office for this purpose. The coast guards must also be closely integrated into the system.
“In the digital area, we are thus on the way to better protection,” Gehringer attests to the EU. With the Critical Infrastructure Protection (CER) Directive, the member states must now also improve the physical protection of critical infrastructures. In Germany, this is to be achieved by the new law proposed by Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser (SPD) in 2023, for which initial key points were approved by the cabinet in December. “The KRITIS law is also a first, right step, but it shows that we are just beginning to deal with critical infrastructure protection in rudimentary ways,” says Gehringer.
By his own admission, Klaus Müller has been “in crisis mode” for a long time. He took up his new post on March 1 – Russia had just invaded Ukraine. “It was clear right away that energy supply would be the most urgent issue. A crisis was looming,” says the 51-year-old. As the new president of the Federal Network Agency, he originally wanted to take care of a booster for renewable energies, the expansion of the power grid and a lot more. But the biggest challenge at the moment, of course, is to avoid a gas shortage and get the country safely through the winter.
Müller worked in the early 90s as environment and agriculture minister for the state of Schleswig-Holstein in the cabinet of Heide Simonis. After his time in state politics, the Bündnis 90/Die Grünen (Greens) member turned his attention to consumer protection and served as a board member and representative of the Federation of German Consumer Organizations from 2014 to February 2022. This was followed by a move to the Federal Network Agency and, thus, the assumption of another high-ranking office in the Federal Republic.
Asked to what extent he benefits from his previous experience in consumer protection, Müller replies: “For me, competition and fair market conditions are the pillars of consumer protection. That’s where we as the consumer advice center have always looked at the Federal Network Agency with a fascinated eye. Civil society consumer protection has its role and so does regulatory consumer protection. I think the two can complement each other really well.”
During the time he worked for the consumer centers, up to 800,000 complaints were received annually. Where these had a structural relevance, they had been passed on to the supervisory authorities. That’s why Müller has been in frequent contact with the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority, the Federal Office for Information Security, the Federal Cartel Office and the Federal Network Agency in recent years. “As the head of the Federal Network Agency, I naturally also have to deal with other authorities permanently. It is perhaps an advantage that I am already familiar with this kind of cooperation,” says Müller.
The agency is close to political processes; after all, it implements laws passed by the German Bundestag. One example is the expansion of the power grid. Müller is no stranger to these processes from his time as a state minister. Overall, the 51-year-old sees the Federal Network Agency not just as an authority that works through a program according to the letters and commas. “Its task is to point out quite clearly when things can be done more efficiently, better and more sustainable. That is also my understanding of a modern agency,” says Müller.
In addition, there is the European dimension. The Federal Network Agency is in constant exchange with other European regulatory authorities through many channels. The current situation has so far allowed Müller only a limited number of inaugural meetings, he recounts, but despite and precisely because of the current situation, he says it is important for him to be in contact with sister authorities himself. “We are talking about networks that extend beyond national borders. We are networked, connected with other countries, and therefore we are in exchange with each other. Now, when it comes to distributing the gas fairly, it shows how important cooperation is. We get gas from neighboring countries, for example the Netherlands, France and Belgium. Conversely, we can supply electricity to France or gas to southeastern Europe,” Müller explains. Constantin Eckner
