International

In order to achieve anything in the European Parliament, you have to cooperate with other parties. That holds true even for the biggest group, the Christian Democrats of the European People’s Party, who this week suffered a number of setbacks as a result of finding insufficient support from other groups, The SP Eurogroup tries always to behave constructively in order to record as many concrete results as possible. At the same time it is self-evident that such opportunistic parliamentary coalitions must never be at the cost of what separates the SP from other parties, the fact that we constantly seek direct contact with ordinary people and the organisations which represent their interests. Real successes can only be recorded if you link your work in the parliament with what you do outside.

There are many opportunities for extra-parliamentary work. A lot of people bring concrete problems or questions to the SP eurogroup. It often turns out that an individual question actually involves a much broader problem that we will have to address by trying to solve it either in the Netherlands itself or in Brussels. In addition, Kartika and I receive visits from numerous representatives of interest groups, and from these contacts too we get a great deal of useful information. And of course, as the Eurogroup we conduct our own research as well. This spring we will be looking into the role of the countless European Commission agencies working throughout Europe, trying to find out what precisely they do and about people’s experiences of them.

But parliamentary work is also important. For example, this week the EP was able to do something which the Dutch parliament has never been given the opportunity to do : the agreement with the US which would have meant that a major part of our bank details would have been put at the disposal of the Americans has been thrown out. A majority of MEPs voted against the accord, so that at last we will see negotiations taking place in a democratic and transparent fashion leading to an even-handed solution which respects our privacy.

You can’t achieve this sort of result on your own. In this case the rapporteur – the MEP who takes the lead in preparing the Parliament’s response to a proposal – was Hennis Plasschaert from the centre-right liberal party, the VVD. She played a decisive role, and I see no problem in congratulating her on this success. I find that I can also work with the centre-right liberals when it concerns Brussels’ busybody tendencies or wastefulness. In the case of the Christian Union, it turned out this week that we share each others’ concerns over gambling policy, the CU and ourselves thinking alike in regard to the dangers inherent in the European Commission’s opinion, which crops up on a regular basis, that gambling should be seen as simply another service sector where free competition should be possible. We, on the other hand, want member states to maintain the right to regulate the industry in order to protect people from gambling addiction.

We often work with the Green Left on environmental protection, animal welfare and foreign policy matters. With D66, cooperation concerns preventing Brussels, under the influence of Rome, from undermining the separation of Church and State. And we find we can often work with the Labour Party on social issues.

There is no government or opposition in the EP, which perhaps makes cooperation easier than it is in the Netherlands. Yet it remains striking that this isn’t one-way traffic : we don’t only go looking for opportunities to cooperate with others, they do that with us too, because they can see that the SP is open to this. In the Netherlands, we are ready to go into government. I hope very much that should any national politicians doubt this, they will pick up the phone and talk to their colleagues in Brussels, who I am convinced will confirm that the SP is a reliable partner, always of course with our own principles and programme, but certainly a party with whom it is good to work. And if you should ever want a government which is in contact with the man or woman in the street, you can certainly not rule out the SP. We never shut ourselves away in meeting rooms but continue, with our feet on the ground, to work in the broader society.