Thorsten Frei, the upcoming Chief of the German Chancellor’s Office (CDU), has expressed his intention to strengthen the country’s intelligence agencies. According to Frei, many attacks in Germany have been prevented thanks to the assistance from foreign partners. These partnerships are based on the principle of reciprocity, as he stated in an interview with the Funke-Mediengruppe newspapers.
Frei emphasized the need to modernize the legal framework for data exchange between intelligence services and other agencies, which he believes is no longer up to date with the current threat landscape. He called for the expansion of transmission rights and the review of existing deletion periods as necessary measures. The goal is to ensure that German intelligence services remain a reliable partner for their international allies.