BERLIN - The number of incidents involving Germany's extreme right has increased sharply in the past year, a banner year for the neo-Nazi and xenophobic movements, according to figures from the German Ministry of the Interior.

The German government responded to last week's report by announcing a series of projects slated to stem the tide, and justice minister Brigitte Zypries put battling the extreme right at the top of her agenda. Zypries would like to use Germany's upcoming six-month stint at the helm of the European Union to make Holocaust denial an EU-wide crime.

Last Friday, data for the first 11 months of 2006 indicated an almost 10 percent increase over 2005 and a five-year high. The Interior Ministry told Haaretz that the final figures for the year, due for publication in May, are likely to be much higher. Most racially motivated violence took place in former East Germany, fueled primarily by the neo-Nazi National Democratic Party.

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"The NPD has substantially increased its political power in recent years, particularly in eastern Germany, through merging or cooperating with extreme youth movements," explains Professor Hajo Funke of Berlin's Free University. "It is a violent, anti-Semitic, xenophobic subculture that has become a trend among the young and threatens life in many small former East German towns."

Funke says 17 percent of first-time voters in the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomorania voted for NPD in September elections, far outpacing the 7 percent among the general public.

Although most experts don't think NPD has the nationwide support that would enable it to enter the Bundestag in the near future, Berlin did try to outlaw NPD in 2004. That effort was overruled when it was appealed in court.

The latest figures support reports by the Jewish community and organizations fighting anti-Semitism indicating sharp increases in the number of anti-Semitic incidents in the last year, especially during the second Lebanon war.

The German government announced a series of measures to combat the phenomenon this week, including funding for dozens of diversity-promotion projects and expansion of its "Youth for Tolerance and Democracy" program.

Zypries' plans include legislating jail terms for racial incitement, prohibitions on Nazi symbols, and jail terms for Holocaust denial. In addition, the Justice Ministry is initiating pan-European cooperation in investigating right-wing activists. "We are worried by cross-border cooperation among Europe's extreme right," Zypries added in an interview with the daily Bild.

Similar German initiatives for European cooperation against the extreme right were torpedoed by Silvio Berlusconi's right-wing government in Italy, but the left-leaning Romano Prodi has signaled support.