PARIS -- European countries will increase identity checks and baggage controls on trains after American passengers thwarted an attack Aug. 21 on a high-speed train from Amsterdam to Paris, France's interior minister said Saturday.
The interior and transport ministers of several countries also said they'll consider listing passenger names on all international rail tickets, and they asked the European Union to work on a plan to better track trade of illegal guns, French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said after a meeting Saturday in Paris, which was called after the attempted attack on a train traveling from Amsterdam to Paris.
French President Francois Hollande said last week that a "massacre" was narrowly avoided when passengers, including two off-duty U.S. servicemen, tackled a heavily armed gunman as he emerged from a toilet. The Moroccan suspect -- who had lived in Spain and had been flagged as a terror risk by Spanish police -- bought his ticket in cash and showed no ID, before taking an automatic rifle and a handgun onboard unnoticed.
The attack underscored the risks facing Europe's trains, which unlike airplanes depart from open stations with passengers able to buy tickets and board at the last minute. Identity checks are not required for boarding trains in most European countries.
Cazeneuve said the EU will use "all its tools" to help secure trains, while insisting that the ministers intended to "guarantee fluid international train traffic."
In a statement, the ministers floated the possibility of letting train police consult intelligence databases and improve Europe-wide use of criminal record databases.
Such measures, if implemented, would require close monitoring to ensure that they do not constitute border controls, which are illegal under the rule book governing the passport-free area known as the Schengen zone. They could also raise privacy concerns, which have held up Europe-wide legislation on aviation passenger records.
The ministers called for closer work with the aviation industry, based on its experience in increasing security since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. They also urged more mixed patrols of international police teams on cross-border trains.
The security officials said there's no way to monitor each passenger and bag without choking the continental train system, which Europeans rely upon heavily.
"We can't do and don't want complete, comprehensive checks on people or luggage in trains in Germany or Europe," German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said on the sidelines of the meeting.
He said the main goal is to improve targeted cooperation and the exchange of information on suspicious people.
EU Transport Commissioner Violeta Bulc called free travel within Europe "one of our greatest achievements."
"I hope, and I also believe, we will find the right solution that will not jeopardize these fundamental rights, and at the same time ensure that the security on a European level is at its best," she told reporters after the meeting.
France alone has tens of thousands of international train passengers daily, in addition to millions of daily domestic train travelers.
Saturday's meeting sets the stage for a discussion at the EU level next month. The results of the conference will be debated by Europe's rail security group Sept. 11, and forwarded for EU transport ministers to discuss when they meet Oct. 7-8.
Information for this article was contributed by Gregory Viscusi and Francois de Beaupuy of Bloomberg News and by Thomas Adamson, Angela Charlton, Lorne Cook and Geir Moulson of The Associated Press.
A Section on 08/30/2015