European Union security experts are concerned about the growing right-wing threat of terrorism. This emerges from a minutes of the meeting of EU interior ministers this week in Luxembourg, which is the SPIEGEL. But the individual states can not even agree on a common definition, which is violent right-wing extremism.
According to the briefing of the ministerial meeting on Tuesday, experts from the police department Europol complained that the phenomenon was "not sufficiently documented".
Often, extremist crimes are not understood as terrorist acts. Representatives of the European Commission warned that violent right-wing extremism increasingly uses methods that are known by Islamists, such as the spread of hatred on the Internet.
German security agencies are being increased
The EU Counter-Terrorism Coordinator, Belgian Gilles de Kerchove, said: "Right-wing extremists are on the rise not just in Europe but worldwide." He referred to attacks in New Zealand, Norway and the US. However, there is still no common definition of violent right-wing extremism among the Member States of the European Union.
As an example, the anti-terror coordinator Canada, which a few months ago the neo-Nazi groups "Blood and Honor" and "Combat 18" has put on the terrorist list. A similar detection of violent right-wing extremist groups would also be considered at the European level, suggested de Kerchove.
Several Member States, including Sweden and Germany, welcomed a sharper crackdown on right-wing extremism in Europe.
Interior Minister Horst Seehofer (CSU) and his delegation are quoted as saying that they had to make "painful experiences" last. Therefore, the German security authorities would currently be increased and equipped with additional powers.
That's what the ministers agreed on
The representatives of other countries expressed some restraint. In the end, according to a statement, the ministerial ministers agreed, among other things, to first of all get a "better overview of violent right-wing extremism and terrorism" in Europe.
Just the day after the EU meeting, 27-year-old Stephan Balliet in Halle tried to storm a synagogue in order to kill as many Jews as possible. When he failed to penetrate the church with weapons and explosives, he shot a passerby in the street and a construction worker in a doner kebab shop. Balliet filmed his attacks and broadcast them live on the Internet. He is in custody and has confessed his actions.
Left MEP Cornelia Ernst told SPIEGEL that it had to be officially recognized "that right-wing extremism is an urgent problem across the EU".
Only in this way could "the issue also be given the necessary priority".
