BRUSSELS, July 26 (UPI) -- European leaders said they were looking for a common response to fighting xenophobia following last week's massacre in Norway.
Anders Behring Breivik allegedly confessed to a bombing in downtown Oslo that killed at least eight people and for a shooting spree at a youth camp on a nearby island in which 68 died.
In a closed-door hearing Monday, Breivik reportedly told authorities the attacks were necessary to save the European community from "Marxist and Muslim colonization."
Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said statements like Breivik's showed a common European policy was needed, the EUobserver reports.
"This is something extremely serious that requires a response, a European response, a shared response to defend freedom, to defend democracy, calling on people to rise up and fight radicalism, to respond against xenophobia," he said from London.
Breivik in his manifesto named German Chancellor Angela Merkel as a target. She said during the weekend his sense of hatred against foreigners "is our common enemy."
The European Union is pushing ahead with a measure aimed at curbing radicalization with a $5.8 million initiative. The project was extended to Norway.
