Luxembourg, 18/04/2008 (Agence Europe) - On Friday 18 April, the 27 member states of the EU reached agreement on a 47-point action plan to combat the use of explosive devices by terrorists within the EU. The action plan is one of the raft of proposals put forward by the Commission in November 2007 (see EUROPE 9536). Four separate issues relating to the security of explosives are dealt with in the plan: precursors, the supply chain, detection and public safety. Among the plan's flagship measures are the setting up of an early warning system on explosives (EWS) between member states' public safety authorities and Europol, to provide, for example, information on the theft of explosives, detonators or precursors (materials that can be used to produce explosives) in the EU. The forthcoming French Presidency will work on the EWS, French Interior Minister Michèle Alliot-Marie told a group of journalists. She said that the plan should not just concentrate on combating terrorism, it should also combat crime and the production of explosives by young people using instructions found on the internet. At the meeting, the representatives of the Nordic countries raised the issue of monitoring some of the materials that are used to make agricultural fertilisers and which could be used to make explosives, Alliot-Marie said, and she indicated that she felt that broader control of precursors should be brought in. (B.C.)