LUXEMBOURG: Luxembourg, current holder of the EU presidency, is to advocate banning Nazi symbols across the 25 member-states, the country's justice minister, Mr Luc Frieden, said yesterday.
But Germany, which has already banned Nazi symbols such as the swastika, voiced doubts that the ban would have any effect, saying that far-right extremists would get around it.
Mr Frieden said that the EU owed it to millions of victims of Nazi death camps during the second World War to agree a ban on racism and xenophobia, which has been under consideration since 2001.
"We must conclude on this issue. The discussion has been going on for too long. We owe it also to the victims of Auschwitz and other concentration camps," Mr Frieden told reporters during an informal meeting of EU justice and interior ministers.
World leaders mourned victims of the Holocaust on Thursday, the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the biggest Nazi death camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
EU ministers are to debate proposals for tougher jail terms for hate crimes motivated by racism and xenophobia at a meeting in Brussels next month. The draft EU rules, which are aimed at harmonising anti-racism laws, must be agreed unanimously.
German lawmakers called for an EU-wide ban on Nazi symbols after Britain's Prince Harry provoked outrage by wearing a swastika armband and a Nazi uniform at a fancy-dress party.
But Germany's interior minister, Mr Otto Schily, said he doubted that such steps would be effective, citing the German far-right National Democratic Party as an example. The NDP, which last week staged a walk-out during a minute's silence for victims of the Nazis, uses red, white and black colours in logos which are similar in style to those used by Adolf Hitler.
"It shows they can evade such a ban by using symbols which are not Nazi symbols, but which are very similar," Mr Schily said.
The German government has tried to ban the NDP, but has so far failed to do so. - Reuters