Security set to be key election issue across EU in 2017

CALLS are growing across Europe for the tightening of border controls in the aftermath of last week's terrorist attack in Germany. With the latest incident capping off a year of high-profile atrocities across the continent, security issues will be a dominant political theme in European politics in 2017, especially with key elections in France and Germany, which have borne much of the brunt of this year's attacks.

The increasing demands for tighter border controls, with much of Europe still on high security alert, follow revelations that the presumed perpetrator of the German attack, 24-year-old Tunisian Anis Amri, travelled more than 800 kilometres to Italy, via France, after committing his atrocity. This is despite the fact that he was the target of an intensive manhunt as Europe's most wanted criminal at the time.

At this stage, it remains unclear whether Amri received substantive outside help with his attack. His professed affiliations to the so-called Islamic State terrorist group, which were revealed in a video of him pledging allegiance to the group released after the attack, are still being probed.