Following the attacks on the Bardo Museum in Tunis and in the coastal resort of Sousse, the Federal Foreign Office has agreed to offer the Tunisian Government further support for the reform of its security sector (Süddeutsche Zeitung of 10 July 2015). According to the newspaper, it is to ‘hugely increase’ its training aid and the supply of technical equipment. EUR 100m would be allocated to this over the next few years. The funds would be provided by the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence. The focus was on securing the border with Libya. According to the newspaper, the Federal Foreign Minister, Dr Frank-Walter Steinmeier, has made ‘a renewed attempt’ to launch an initiative for an EU Border Assistance Mission (EUBAM), together with the British and the French Governments. A similar attempt in 2014 failed. Now all 28 EU foreign ministers are to decide on the deployment of a EUBAM mission. Another objective of the German measures is to build up ‘effective police authorities’. Here the Federal Ministry of the Interior has the ‘support’ of the Federal Criminal Police Office and the Federal Police. The Tunisian Government has begun to construct a 268-kilometre-long and two-meter-high barrier along the Libyan border. To that end, the Federal Foreign Office has donated 50 high-quality thermal image cameras to the Tunisian border police.
The European Commission is also negotiating with Tunisia on assistance with border surveillance and is holding out the prospect of EUR 25m in funding (Bundestag Printed paper 18/5600). The Federal Police cooperation is aimed at preventing unwanted migration by land and sea towards Europe. The Federal Criminal Police Office is training its partners in ‘countering terrorism’. This is now to be followed by courses on telecommunications surveillance, internet investigation and data interception. Acting jointly with France, Germany wants to embark on further projects to strengthen the penal system institutions. That too could link up with earlier IT monitoring measures.