EU to push for Europe-wide ban on Nazi symbols

LUXEMBOURG - EU president Luxembourg will push to add Nazi symbols to a proposed ban across the 25-nation bloc on hate crimes motivated by racism and xenophobia, the country's justice minister, Luc Frieden, said on Friday.

But Germany, which has already banned Nazi symbols such as the swastika, voiced doubts the ban would have any effect, saying far-right extremists would find ways to get around it.

Frieden said the EU owed it to millions of victims of Nazi death camps during World War 2 to agree a ban on racism and xenophobia, 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," Frieden told reporters at 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.

"The ceremonies that took place yesterday in Auschwitz, the symbol of Nazi atrocities, remind us that we must be very vigilant that such ideas, such ideologies, can no longer find grounds in Europe," he said.

Ministers will debate proposals for tougher jail terms for hate crimes motivated by racism and xenophobia at a meeting in Brussels next month.

When asked if Luxembourg as EU president would be willing to to include Nazi symbols in the ban on racism, Frieden said: "The answer is yes."

The draft EU rules, 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 caused an outrage by wearing a swastika armband and a Nazi costume at a fancy-dress party.

But German Interior Minister Otto Schily said he doubted such steps would be effective, citing the German far-right National Democratic Party (NPD), as an example.

The party, which provoked outrage last week by walking out of a minute's silence for Nazi victims, uses red, white and black colours in logos and slogans like Adolf Hitler' Nazi party did.

"It shows they can evade such a ban by using symbols which are not Nazi symbols, but which are very similar," Schily said.

The German government has tried, but not succeeded in banning the NPD.

- REUTERS