Germany Wants to Blacklist Hezbollah - Report

Hans-Peter Friedrich, German Minister of the Interior. Photo by EPA/BGNES

Germany will reportedly request the placement of Hezbollah on the EU's list of terrorist groups if suspicions are confirmed that the organization was behind the bus bombing in Bulgaria last year.

According to Spiegel Online, after talks with representatives of the American Jewish Committee and security experts, German Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich said he favored banning the group in Europe.

In early February, Tsvetan Tsvetanov, then Bulgaria's Minister of Interior, made an official statement saying the probe on the attack that killed five Israeli tourists and a Bulgarian bus driver gives grounds to believe it was organized and carried out by Hezbollah's military wing.

Bulgaria's caretaker government has declared that will not initiate the technical procedure for listing Hezbollah as a terrorist organization in the European Union.

Only two EU countries currently label Hezbollah a terrorist organization—the UK and the Netherlands. The UK blacklists only the military wing of the Shiite organization.

Blacklisting the organization could allow regional authorities to clamp down on financial flows to the group and open the way for freezing assets linked to Hezbollah in Europe.

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