Cautious backing for EU-wide abducted child alerts

EU ministers gave cautious backing to plans for cross-border alerts for abducted children, saying it could be useful in some cases but too many alerts in too many countries might be counterproductive.

Justice and interior ministers from the bloc's 27 countries discussed the plan for EU-wide alerts in the Portuguese capital five months after British four-year-old Madeleine McCann went missing from a holiday resort in southern Portugal.

They agreed to coordinate alerts for abducted children, which could involve media campaigns and an electronic list of missing children accessible to judicial and police authorities, EU President Portugal said.

Portugal's Justice Minister Alberto Costa said the alerts would be limited to the most serious cases and would not automatically be sent to all countries.

Countries would keep their own alert systems but coordinate when to use them.

"It should be useful above all in a limited geographical area, we are not talking about (alerts from) Portugal all the way to Finland," Mr Costa told a news conference after the talks.

Diplomats said a number of ministers stressed the need to be selective in deciding when to send an alert and to which countries, noting that many children or teenagers who disappeared returned home in a few days.

"It doesn't make any sense to show the faces of three to five children every day on TV because this has a dulling effect," German Justice Minister Brigitte Zypries said.

She said that in Germany, one in two missing children reappear after three days and added: "I don't think it's useful to publish alerts in Denmark for a child that has been kidnapped in the south of Italy."

Dutch Justice Minister Ernst Hirsch Ballin told reporters he supported a cross-border system but what mattered was the cooperation of neighbouring countries. He said issuing alerts in all 27 countries would not necessarily be useful.

Spain's Justice Minister Mariano Fernandez Bermejo supported cross-border alerts in the EU: "It is clear that we should involve the media, it has been proven that chances to find a child increase with the rapidity of the alert," he said.

Madeleine McCann's disappearance on May 3 triggered an international search and a high-profile media campaign. Portuguese police have been criticised in Britain for their perceived slow initial response to the girl's disappearance.