BRUSSELS (AFP-EJP)--- European Union countries remained divided Thursday over a German initiative to make Holocaust denial and incitement to racial hatred a crime.

"The positions have not really changed. Germany has got into in a very difficult undertaking," one diplomat said, on condition of anonymity, on the sidelines of talks between EU justice ministers in Brussels.

The divisions are above all cultural ones aligning mainly Britain, Ireland and Scandinavian countries, who staunchly defend freedom of expression protected under their laws, against countries which already punish such crimes.

German Justice Minister Brigitte Zypries, whose country holds the EU’s six-month rotating presidency until the end of June, wants to outlaw the denial of the murder of six million Jews by the Nazis and their collaborators in World War II before its term at the helm runs out.

But similar efforts to pass such measures broke down in 2005.

Under the text being debated, EU countries would set jail terms of at least three years for "publicly inciting ... violence or hatred directed against a group of persons or a member of such a group defined by reference to race, colour, religion, descent or national or ethnic origin."

It would also apply to people "publicly condoning, denying, or grossly
trivialising crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes" as defined in the statutes of the International Criminal Court.

Germany’s case has notably run into trouble in Italy, where the government has published a draft law which proposes penalties of up to three years in jail for inciting racial hatred, but stops short of making Holocaust denial a crime.

Latvia’s parliament said Wednesday that it supports the German text but also wants it to include a clause condemning crimes committed by totalitarian regimes.

Previous attempt

A previous attempt in 2005 to draft common rules failed after Italy blocked a deal on the standards that would define racism and set out common aims to tackle it.

Britain, Denmark and Hungary also voiced concern that criminalizing use of symbols like the swastika could curb freedom of expression.

Slovakia, Lithuania and other eastern European members also have called for communist symbols such as the hammer and sickle to be included in the plan, but EU diplomats said no decision on that request has yet been made.

Franco Frattini, the European Commissioner for justice and interior affairs has recently appealed to EU governments to compromise.

He has backed jail terms for "concrete incitement" of racism and hatred, but said the rules should leave it up to member states to decide what type of racist incidents would constitute a punishable crime.

Several EU member states already ban denial of the Holocaust, including Germany, France, Spain, Austria and Belgium.

The use of Nazi insignia is forbidden in Germany, where Holocaust denial was already made a crime in 1985.