EU denies violent games to children

BRUSSELS: The European Union wants to crack down on the sale of violent video games to children, the EU's top justice official said on Wednesday.

EU Justice and Security Commissioner Franco Frattini said the 27-nation bloc's executive body wants to harmonise the rules restricting the sale of video games to children under 16.

"I do want to harmonise rules ... punishing people illegally selling products, people not controlling and checking identity," Frattini told journalists.

He said current EU-wide controls were insufficient and that too often retailers failed to check the age of children buying games clearly labelled as restricted to ages 16 and over.

Frattini said he would table a proposal to justice ministers before the summer break on harmonising sanctions for retailers, but not touch on which games should be forbidden.

"We cannot judge from Brussels which videogames should be prohibited," he told reporters.

Frattini said that Germany, Britain, Greece, Italy, Hungary, Finland, France and Spain had since then shown support for a "hard line" on violent games.