Following the recent terrorist attacks in Nice and Vienna, more and more voices are now being raised for tougher measures against radical Islamists in the EU. One of the proposals is a joint EU training of imams.
“We must fight hatred as an ideology, and set up a European institute to train imams throughout the EU,” Charles Michel, President of the European Council, said last night in the Austrian capital, Vienna.
Michel, who is leading the work of the Heads of State and Government in the EU, attended a ceremony with Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz to honor the victims of the terrorist attack in Vienna last week.
This afternoon, a mini-summit in the EU will be held on the initiative of Sebastian Kurz and French President Emanuelle Macron.
The meeting will take place via video link and will also be attended by Charles Michel and EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who will lead the EU this semester.
EU leaders now want to see rapid action to prevent radicalization and counteract what is called radical Islam, where joint training of imams is one of the proposals.
A declaration to be hammered out later this week also states that EU countries must tighten the requirements for migrants to integrate into society and accept European values.
The leaders also want to speed up the ongoing negotiations to force Internet operators to delete online terrorist propaganda within an hour.
It also wants to give police and prosecutors access to encrypted material on various online apps, and calls on EU countries to flag the names of radical Islamists who could pose a security threat to the Schengen Information System SIS.
On Friday, EU interior ministers will hold an extra meeting in connection with the terrorist attacks in France and Austria, where the proposals will be discussed further and the issue is also expected to dominate the EU summit next week.
Source: ICELAND NEWS