The United Kingdom (UK) and Germany is set to announce a new joint partnership to counter sabotage, cyberattacks and threats to critical infrastructure when Prime Minister Andy Burnham meets Chancellor Friedrich Merz in Berlin on Thursday.
The partnership will focus on sharing intelligence and coordinating action to monitor, deter and disrupt hostile activity.
The move comes as both governments have escalated warnings about hybrid warfare in Europe.
British ministers were last month due to brief defence companies and critical national infrastructure providers on the risk.
On Monday, Germany’s head of foreign intelligence warned that the confrontation with Russia has taken on a new, more dangerous dimension.
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The announcement builds on the landmark Trinity House Agreement on Defence signed last year.
Under that agreement, the UK and Germany have already deepened military and cyber cooperation, including a new Lighthouse project linking the UK’s Cyber and Specialist Operations Command (CSOC) with Germany’s Cyber and Information Domain Service to share data, intelligence and operational tools in real time via a secure cloud network, and to protect NATO logistics and transport networks.
It also follows a series of recent incidents. Last month, Berlin said it had concluded that Russia was responsible for an attempted drone disruption at Leipzig/Halle Airport in August.
In July, the EU and UK imposed coordinated sanctions on Russia’s intelligence services, accusing Moscow’s GRU and FSB of a campaign of cyberattacks across Europe, including a failed attempt to disrupt Poland’s power grid last winter that could have left 500,000 people without electricity.
Under the 2024 UK-Germany treaty, both countries committed to strengthen resilience and build capacity to detect, deter, disrupt and respond to hybrid threats including sabotage, malicious cyber activity, foreign information manipulation and interference.
Reuters
