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Climate activists glued to a tarmac at Hamburg Airport (in July 2023)
Photo: Bodo Marks / dpa
The German government wants to make German airports safer and prosecute intrusion into the security area as a criminal offence in the future. "The penalties for entering the security area of airports are too low," Transport Minister Volker Wissing (FDP) told the newspapers of the Funke media group. "Anyone who deliberately enters the grounds of an airport endangers the safety of people and causes considerable economic damage."
Wissing said more needs to be done to deter such acts. "The penalties for entering the security area of airports are too low. According to the current legal situation, this is only punishable as an administrative offence with a fine of up to 10,000 euros." This is a loophole in the law.
Together with Justice Minister Marco Buschmann (FDP), he had asked Interior Minister Nancy Faeser to make a proposal for an amendment to the Aviation Security Act. The SPD politician replied that she was "happy to take up" this initiative. A corresponding letter from the Minister of the Interior, which was received by the Ministry of Transport on 9 November, is available to the Funke newspapers.
Buschmann said: "The intrusion and blocking of airports causes great damage and is dangerous. It is therefore only logical that the Federal Government is now examining the introduction of a corresponding offence in the Aviation Security Act. Our rule of law is defensible."
Transport Minister Wissing also called on airport operators to review their security concepts. "There is no such thing as 100 percent security – not even at airports," he said. "What has now happened in Hamburg must be an opportunity for all airport operators to review their own security concepts and make adjustments if there is room for improvement."
Last Saturday, a 35-year-old had broken through the access restrictions to Hamburg Airport with a car and had penetrated to the apron of the airport. The background was a custody dispute: According to the public prosecutor's office, the man wanted to force the joint departure to Turkey with his daughter, who had previously been forcibly kidnapped from his ex-wife's apartment in Stade. It was only after about 18 hours of negotiations that the hostage-taker surrendered to the security forces. In response, the head of the airport, Michael Eggenschwiler, announced structural measures to improve security.
In addition, there have also been actions by climate activists in the security area of several German airports in recent months, including in Berlin, Düsseldorf, Hamburg and Munich.
max/AFP/dpa