The German government has presented the draft of a Bundeswehr Infrastructure Acceleration Act. As the Bundestag states in its parliamentary news, the aim is to enable the Bundeswehr to “adapt its structures to new requirements more quickly and effectively”. The focus of German security and defence policy is averting a possible Russian attack on Germany and its allies in Europe, according to the draft.
The draft, Bundestag printed paper 21/8409, provides for amendments to several laws. The stated goal is the Bundeswehr’s “rapid and comprehensive growth and sustainment capability”. To this end, the construction volume is to be increased, construction projects accelerated and a strategic property reserve created.
Exemptions in nature and environmental protection
Specifically, the government plans exemptions in environmental and nature conservation law in favour of the Bundeswehr as well as adjusted rules in the Protection Area Act and the Land Procurement Act. This is intended to ensure the military use of properties, their expansion and the use of new sites, make interventions in nature easier to carry out and accelerate construction projects. In addition, the “overriding public interest” in these tasks is to be enshrined in law in order to give Bundeswehr concerns more weight, for example in planning assessments. For selected procedures, the Federal Administrative Court is to have first-instance jurisdiction – an approach intended to shorten lawsuits and thus delays.
The Federal Services Act is also being adjusted: to “current scenarios and hybrid warfare”, as the draft puts it. To make service more attractive, rules on the accommodation of military personnel are also to be changed. In future, soldiers who are not subject to accommodation obligations are also to receive official accommodation in order to improve professional mobility and accommodation at the place of duty. The draft puts the additional costs for communal accommodation over the coming five years at up to 210 million euros.
Lower Saxony moves ahead – and draws criticism
The federal government is not alone: on 9 June 2026, the Lower Saxony cabinet already approved its own draft law intended to simplify and accelerate planning and approval procedures for measures of national and alliance defence. According to the German Press Agency, relief for defence-relevant projects is also to apply in monument protection law. Economics Minister Grant Hendrik Tonne (SPD) justified the move with the changed security policy situation in Europe: defence-relevant construction projects should not fail because of “unnecessary bureaucratic hurdles”. According to the state government, the Bundeswehr thus gets “a free hand” for its buildings.
Criticism comes from the CDU state parliamentary group. Its chairman Sebastian Lechner said, according to dpa, that the red-green state government’s draft comes too late and falls short. The CDU had already presented a comprehensive draft law to strengthen the Bundeswehr last year, which had been rejected by red-green without a constructive proposal of its own. Lechner: “While the CDU delivered comprehensively at an early stage, red-green is today celebrating a fraction of it as a security policy awakening.”
What this means for Germany
For people in Germany, it is initially about construction sites, areas and procedures: where barracks are expanded or newly used, approvals are to be granted more quickly in future – with consequences for local residents, municipalities and environmental associations that have so far been able to invoke nature conservation and planning law. At the same time, soldiers are to find it easier to obtain accommodation at their place of duty, which reduces relocations and commuting. Whether the Bundestag will pass the draft unchanged is open; the legislative process is only beginning with the presentation of the draft. In Lower Saxony, the state procedure is likewise at the beginning, as dpa expressly notes. The Bundestag will now deal with printed paper 21/8409.
