The EU stands ready to help Germany respond to the apparent terror attack on a Berlin Christmas market but does not have a primary role in the investigation, Julian King, the European Commissioner for the Security Union, said Tuesday.

“In these matters, particularly when we are faced with this kind of event, member states and member states’ agencies are on the frontline,” King said in an interview with POLITICO. “We are not in the business of replacing or getting in the way of member states’ agencies and first responders.”

King, a British commissioner who was appointed in August, has been working to improve cooperation and coordination among EU countries in the wake of a string terror attacks this year, including two mass shootings in Paris, the bombings of a subway station and the main airport in Brussels and the mowing down of scores of spectators by a truck in Nice.

The Berlin attack was the first mass casualty terror incident in the German capital this year, but officials had long expected Germany to become a target.

King took over the security portfolio after the previous U.K. commissioner, Jonathan Hill, who handled financial services and capital markets, resigned in the wake of the Brexit vote in June.

In the interview, King said lines of communication were open and the EU would help in response to any request from Germany. “Overnight there were various contacts with the German authorities and the Berlin authorities in order to first and foremost express our solidarity and condolences,” King said, “and obviously to say that if now or later there’s anything to do to help we’ll be there to help.”

He added: “If, at some point, there is information available that the German authorities want to share with others and want to run through the EU databases then that will happen.”