May 16th, 2012 • Willem Melching recently called the SP a ‘nationalistic party’. As evidence, however, the Amsterdam historian offers nothing but the fact that our party is an avowed opponent of the way in which Europe has in the last twenty years been continually vandalised. This is an odd stance for a man who likes to say that ‘facts are the basis of all historical reasoning’. Anyone who knows the SP will see that we are in reality a convinced internationalist party, one which wants European cooperation to be directed towards the essentials: peace, security and welfare – for everyone.

May 15th, 2012 • Prompted by a report from the campaigning NGO Corporate Accountability International which reveals the World Bank’s shocking bias in favour of the private sector, SP development spokesman Ewout Irrgang put a series of questions to the minister responsible for the government’s support for the programmes in question. Water privatisation has been proven not to help the poor, yet a quarter of all World Bank funding goes directly to corporations. In allocating its funds in this way, the Bank’s funding arm ignores even its own published standards of transparency. It also fails to respond to the failure of privatisation to address the problem of water supply in developing countries. Around a third of all private water contracts signed between 2000 and 2010 have failed or are in extreme difficulties – four times the failure rate of comparable infrastructure projects in the electricity and transport sectors. Below we publish Irrgang’s questions, and Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs Ben Knapen’s thoroughly unsatisfactory answers.

May 10th, 2012 • SP Euro-MP Dennis de Jong says that he is pleased with the support from the European Parliament Committee on Justice and Home Affairs for amendments to the European criminal investigation order. The criminal investigation order directive will govern the exchange of evidence between EU member states. ‘How evidence may legally be gathered touches on the principles of the rule of law,’ says De Jong. ‘Happily I have been able to persuade my colleagues that there are a number of problems with the proposal that needed solving. So there will now be no possibility for member states to ask other countries to gather evidence by means of dubious investigative methods.’

May 9th, 2012 • The European Parliament has refused to release the money budgeted for the European Commission’s expert groups, committees established by the Commission to advise on EU legislation and policy. Commenting on the decision, SP Euro-MP Dennis de Jong says: ‘Together with a broad group of MEPs I presented concrete demands to the Commission. The composition of the expert groups would have to change: no more CEOs masquerading as independent experts. For balance, small business people and representatives of trade unions, environmental groups and consumer advocates should be appointed more frequently. Now that the European Commission has shown itself unwilling to discuss this with us, the Parliament has slammed on the brakes.’

May 9th, 2012 • The leader of the Greens in the European Parliament, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, has together with others brought out a manifesto, calling on all young people in Europe to sign up to it. That sounds like a good move from a former activist, but the document in question is full of hollow phrases and empty of social proposals. The EU member states have, according to Cohn-Bendit, made a real mess of things, and only Europe can help young people to move on. This is to stand the world on its head : it is precisely Brussels, with its fetishisism of austerity, which is exacerbating the crisis. Cohn-Bendit completely ignores this question. In my view, his manifesto is fit only for the waste-paper basket.

May 4th, 2012 • SP Member of Parliament Harry van Bommel is demanding that the European Union cut its spending on the use of private aircraft without delay. 'According to the European Commission the EU budget for next year will have to increase by almost 7%,’ says Van Bommel . ‘That’s ridiculous enough, but in a time of austerity having yourself flown about at a rate of €20,000 a pop oversteps all reasonable bounds.'

April 29th, 2012 • Looking at developments in The Hague, I am struck by one thing: nobody raises any longer the question of whether the Brussels procedures, those which might be put into the framework of ‘economic governance’, are compatible with national democracy. Yet at the same time these procedures have been declared holy and inviolable.

April 26th, 2012 • ‘A scandalous strategy from Foreign Minister Uri Rosenthal’ was how SP Member of Parliament reacted to the announcement that the government had sought to conceal the sale of tanks to Indonesia from the national Parliament. According to national daily De Telegraaf, Rosenthal wanted to reveal the tank deal only at the moment that the government had successfully negotiated an accord with other parties to enable budget cuts to go through, the so-called Catshuis Agreement, named for the Prime Minister’s official residence, where it was signed. The hope was that the announcement of the agreement would distract any possible attention away from the sale of the tanks. As Van Dijk says, ‘this is a well-known trick of lying politicians. Bring bad news out when the country is busy with other matters. We deserve an apology for this devious way of going about things.’

April 25th, 2012 • SP Euro-MP Dennis de Jong has called the European Commission’s proposal for a budget increase of 6.8% for 2013 ‘shameless and utterly unrealistic’. De Jong: ‘It’s as if the European Commission believes there are two worlds – the Brussels world where money can be chucked around and the outside world where everyone has to tighten their belt.’

April 24th, 2012 • After two appallingly bad elections, Russia must conduct a rapid and thorough reform of its electoral system. Membership of the Council of Europe means that this biggest of member states has a duty to do so. Unprecedented mass protest in Russia has set the first changes in motion, but only if Russia carries out still further structural reforms will fair elections become possible. These were the conclusions drawn by SP Senator Tiny Kox, Rapporteur on the Russian elections for the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, whose report, presented this week in Strasbourg, won support from across Europe for its conclusions and recommendations, including from the Russian parliament, the Duma, itself.

April 22nd, 2012 • Yesterday Geert Wilders, leader of the hard right PVV, pointed to the European Union when he withdrew his support for the government’s planned round of further spending cuts. And today centre-left leader Francois Hollande came out on top in the first round of the French Presidential elections. One of his themes was that he would if elected reject Merkel’s Budgetary Pact, the treaty which further tightens the budgetary rules for Eurozone countries, as it is not a measure which would promote growth. National elections and European themes are thus becoming intertwined, which is of course logical, because through ‘economic governance’ Brussels is exercising ever more influence on national policy.

April 20th, 2012 • SP Member of Parliament Jasper van Dijk wants the government to explain just what the role is of arms dealer Joep van den Nieuwenhuyzen in relation to the sale abroad by the Netherlands of surplus tanks. Van Den Nieuwenhuyzen took part in a televised interview on Thursday in which he stated that he had found buyers for Dutch tanks.

April 20th, 2012 • The Ministry of Immigration and Asylum today announced that the children of a Burundi asylum seeker who committed suicide last week have been granted the right to remain in the Netherlands. SP Member of Parliament Sharon Gesthuizen describes her reaction as one of ‘relief’, adding that ‘this was the only conceivable solution. It’s good that the minister has taken this decision. I am certain that the children will find support in a familiar environment to get them through this difficult time and I hope that they will be able to pick up the thread of their lives.’

April 19th, 2012 • The European Parliament wants to see action taken against tax evasion and tax avoidance, which between them cost an estimated trillion euros per annum in lost state revenues. SP Euro-MP Dennis de Jong sees tackling tax dodging as a crucial part of the strategy to address the crisis. ‘It’s disgusting to see multinationals such as IKEA, the overseas Italian oil company ENI, the supposedly Greek soft drink bottler Coca-Cola HBC, and the biggest Portuguese supermarket chain Jerónimo Martins avoiding taxes by means of a Dutch postbox company’, says De Jong. ‘And all of this at a time when in Europe ordinary people are having to tighten their belts as a result of the mania for spending cuts. The strongest shoulders are now carrying the lightest loads, and that’s got to change.’

April 18th, 2012 • SP Euro-MP Dennis de Jong describes himself as ‘delighted’ by assurances from European Commissioner László Andor that he is seeking to ban wage dumping by postbox companies. De Jong: 'Lorry drivers, for example, are experiencing this problem. A plc is established in another member state in order to dodge the Netherlands’ CAO, our collective labour agreement, which under normal circumstances governs wages and conditions in the haulage industry. These drivers must then work under eastern European conditions of service or be driven out by cheap labour. I’m pleased that a stop will be soon be put to this.’