EU To Exchange Criminal Record Information

European Union countries agreed to immediately share information when citizens of fellow member states are convicted in their courts.

European Union countries agreed on Wednesday to immediately share information when citizens of fellow member states are convicted in their courts.

Countries will also be obliged to respond to criminal record requests within 10 working days, under the plan approved by EU justice ministers.

EU states which convict nationals from another of the 27 members of the bloc were until now required to provide such information only once a year.

The new plan was drafted at the end of 2005 after the case of Michel Fourniret, a French forest warden who police say confessed to nine murders in France and Belgium.

Fourniret's murder spree highlighted the lack of a common European register of convicted murderers and sex offenders.

Fourniret landed a job at a school in Belgium despite a rape conviction in France because his criminal record was unknown there.

EU states have two years to comply with the new legislation.