Speculation is mounting in Germany whether the head of the country’s foreign intelligence service has been sacrificed as part of a political struggle over how to deal with the long-term fallout from the Snowden revelations.

Gerhard Schindler, who has led Germany’s version of the CIA since 2012, is being removed two years before he reaches retirement age, the government has confirmed. He will be replaced by Bruno Kahl, a department chief at the German finance ministry with close connections to finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble.

In a press briefing, Angela Merkel’s chief of staff, Peter Altmeier, explained that the surprise decision to replace Schindler had been made with a view to a “reform of his role in view of changing security challenges”.

Germany’s intelligence agency, the BND, has been rocked by a series of scandals since the revelations provided by National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden in 2013. A year ago it emerged that the BND had gone against German interests and spied on European partners at the request of the NSA.

But Schindler appeared to have survived the scandal after admitting that BND field offices had taken on “a life of their own” and promising to centralise control. The 63-year-old had also recovered from recent health problems.

Opposition politicians now interpret Schindler’s dismissal as a sign of a pushback against attempts to overhaul the intelligence agency. A draft law, increasing parliamentary oversight over the BND, had been criticised by finance minister Schäuble last month.

Green party veteran Hans-Christian Ströbele, a member of the Bundestag committee investigating the NSA scandal, described the timing of Schindler’s dismissal as suspicious, saying that while there had been good reasons to sack the spy chief over last year’s revelations, he had recently shown a willingness to reform.

“The key question is whether the aim is to block the reform of the BND,” said Konstantin von Notz, also a member of the Bundestag committee on the NSA affair. “If these reforms won’t happen, then the chancellory is sitting on a ticking time bomb.”

The chairman of the Bundestag’s committee told Mitteldeutsche Zeitung that “we need a fresh start at the BND” in order to reform the service in the light of the recent scandals. On top of the Snowden leaks, the German intelligence service has been shaken by the embarrassing revelation that one of its own employees sold on information to both American and Russian agencies.

Privacy rights activists fear that Schindler’s dismissal is part of a wider pushback by intelligence agency officials, who feel emboldened after terrorist attacks in Brussels last month and in Paris last November.

In an interview this month, the head of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, Hans-Georg Maaßen, had suggested that the Snowden leaks had been directed by the Kremlin to drive a wedge between western Europe and the US.

Germany, which has not suffered a major attack by Islamic militants, has been declared a primary target by intelligence agencies.