Overview
- Bavaria's cabinet advanced a draft to broaden police counter-drone authority, allowing electronic takeover, nets, propulsion disruption and, as a last resort, shootdowns.
- The proposal lifts the state's ban on arming police-operated drones, and Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann said the Landtag could pass the measure this year.
- A new Bavarian police drone competence and defence center will be established in Erding near Munich Airport to concentrate capabilities.
- Munich Airport twice halted operations last week after drone sightings, with federal police describing devices around one meter in size and no confirmed attribution.
- Berlin plans additional purchases of detection gear, short-range radars, interceptor and reconnaissance drones and kinetic systems, while experts warn about proportionality and identification limits and police unions urge rapid equipping.