EU to propose new anti-terrorism steps

BRUSSELS, July 3 (Reuters) The European Commission said today it would propose new steps to boost the fight against terrorism by sharing air passenger data within Europe, tracking explosives and countering radical Islamist teaching.

EU Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini said recent failed car bombings in London and the arrests of terrorist suspects in Spain and France underlined the need for collective action.

Proposals to be presented in October would include making it a criminal offence to spread bomb-making instructions via the Internet and creating an EU-wide database to track stolen or lost explosives.

''We have to cooperate even more closely on fighting terrorism, on prevention, or radicalisation,'' Frattini said.

''The more member states cooperate, the better it will be in preventing and fighting terrorist attacks,'' he told a news conference. ''My idea is that there is a network across Europe of people who are directly or indirectly linked.'' In a report today, the EU executive bemoaned delays in improving police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters.

EU leaders agreed at a summit last month to take decisions on these issues by majority voting instead of unanimity under a planned reform treaty, but Britain secured the right to opt-out.

''Progress is totally unsatisfactory,'' Frattini said, complaining that several member states were delaying enacting EU decisions into national law.

''EUROPEAN ISLAM'' He said he would seek input from the 27 EU member states on how they handled religious education to increase cooperation in preventing Islamist radicalisation.

This would include examination of public and private funding of religious institutions and education of religious teachers.

''The idea under discussion is to have a European Islam,'' he said.

Frattini said this was ''quite a difficult and ambitious'' idea, but the time had come to open it to political discussion ''to protect the large majority of Muslims living here peacefully who deplore and fight against radicalisation''.

The Commission would circulate a discussion paper next week on bio-terrorism and how to strengthen EU-wide preparedness to deal with such a threat.

The commissioner said the EU needed a pan-European system for sharing air passenger data like the arrangement agreed with the United States, but for technical reasons this would have to built on a network of national data collection units.

Frattini's proposals also call for an EU-wide network of bomb disposal units that would cooperate and share information.

Reuters RKM GC2044