EU's Mogherini warns against using Cologne attacks for politics

PRAGUE (Reuters) - Politicians should not use the "shocking" attacks on women in Cologne and other German cities on New Year's Eve to push their own agendas, the EU's foreign policy chief said on Monday. Federica Mogherini, the European Union's representative for foreign affairs and security policy, said violence against women was not brought to Europe by migrants and that there "are good people and bad people, no matter what nationality, what background they have". The incidents in Germany have prompted more than 600 criminal complaints, with police suspicion resting on asylum seekers. That is putting pressure on Chancellor Angela Merkel and her open door migrant policy. "It is a very serious, very shocking event and for sure laws and especially laws that are protecting women's rights and human rights and respect for human dignity must be respected by all, no excuses," Mogherini told a public debate in the Czech capital. "I hope that no politician and no person that has institutional responsibility uses this event in an instrumental way and mixes it with other kind of affairs, because unfortunately violence against women is something that existed before the events that we faced on December 31." Germany has been a top destination for refugees and migrants heading to Europe, with more than one million arriving in the country last year. The attacks, mostly targeting women and ranging from theft to sexual molestation, prompted violent far-right protests on Saturday. They have also intensified the debate on immigration in neighboring Austria and elsewhere. The influx of migrants to Central European countries has been much lower, although countries in the region have often taken a tough stance on the issue and opposed a quota system for asylum seekers agreed by EU member states last year. Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, who has called multi-culturalism a "fiction", has cited the violence in Germany as a reason to speed up reinforcement of controls on the EU's external borders, including bringing forward an EU summit. (Reporting by Robert Muller; Writing by Jason Hovet; Editing by Catherine Evans)