Bild reports that hundreds of positions at the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) in Berlin remain unfilled.
Germany’s foreign intelligence agency is reportedly struggling to monitor threats posed by Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran due to significant staffing shortages, according to a report in Bild newspaper. The report cites data from the agency.
The Federal Intelligence Service (BND) has been plagued by a series of scandals in recent years. In the summer of 2023, Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck admitted that the agency had seriously misjudged the developments in Russia’s conflict with Ukraine and had failed to accurately assess the risk of a direct military confrontation between the two countries.
BND chief Bruno Kahl, who visited Kyiv shortly before the outbreak of the conflict in February 2022, even failed to evacuate with other German diplomats and intelligence operatives in time, prompting the agency to dispatch a team of agents to retrieve their boss.
The tabloid now reports that a severe lack of staff is to blame for the service’s poor performance. According to Bild, approximately 700 positions out of a total of 7,200 within the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) remain unfilled. Kahl reportedly also stated that his agency urgently needed new spies to fill the vacancies.
The report states that the personnel shortage has forced the agency to implement a rotation work principle, requiring intelligence officers specializing in specific fields like Russia or North Korea to temporarily take on administrative and other roles or work on issues outside their area of expertise.
Bild reports that the workload has also allegedly led to BND staff members calling in sick twice as often as the average German employee. More than 1,000 intelligence service personnel took over 30 days of sick leave last year. This period of 30 days marks a threshold beyond which employees are no longer entitled to receive their full salary for their time away from work.
According to Bild, the spy agency has launched a massive advertising campaign to fill the vacancies. The effort has reportedly resulted in over 10,000 new applications. However, the tabloid says that this development is unlikely to alleviate the agency’s problems in the near future. The report states that it takes the service an average of 13 months to process all the data on a new applicant and that approximately 40% of candidates fail background checks.
In July 2023, German media also reported that the BND had failed to promptly inform the government about the mutiny staged by the Wagner private military company in Russia. Later that year, the agency was hit by a particularly high-profile scandal when its former director of technical reconnaissance, Carsten Linke, was charged with espionage and high treason for allegedly handing over classified materials to Russia.