GERMANY: Germany has rejected calls for a central EU criminal database in the wake of the Fourniret murders.
The German Justice Minister, Ms Brigitte Zypries, said a central databank would be impractical and superfluous. It would be more worthwhile to improve communications between existing national police networks, she said. "We have to regulate better, we have to reach a point of electronic data transfer," she said on German radio.
European leaders have faced renewed calls for an EU-wide criminal database following the case of Michel Fourniret who took a job as a school supervisor in Belgium and admitted last month he had kidnapped, raped and strangled nine people, mostly girls.
Ms Zypries said Germany was already collaborating with France and Spain on a system to allow the electronic transfer of criminal data. This "preliminary stage of a virtual database" would facilitate better communications between national police forces.
"Why build up a parallel structure?" said a spokesman for the Justice Ministry. "This system can be extended to other countries that show an interest. And several countries have already said they're interested."
Meanwhile, government and opposition politicians yesterday agreed to a new centralised database in Germany that will pool information from home and abroad on Islamic extremists, ending a long-running jurisdiction row between Berlin and state governments.
Authorities say poor communications between police authorities played a crucial role in allowing an al-Qaeda terror cell to plan the September 11th attacks in Hamburg.