German conservatives advocate creating 'European FBI'
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative bloc is advocating stepping up security cooperation among European Union nations to create what it calls a "European FBI."
The proposal was part of a program for the May 23-26 European Parliament elections approved Monday by Merkel's Christian Democratic Union and its Bavarian sister, the Christian Social Union. The CSU's Manfred Weber is the European center-right's candidate to be next president of the EU's executive Commission.
The program states that Europol, the Netherlands-based EU law enforcement agency, should become "a European FBI," though it also says that EU member countries should retain control of "operational police powers."
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Weber pointed to Germany's own federally organized security structures as a model and said the phrase is meant to underline ambitions to strengthen security cooperation and data exchange.