International

During the SP's regional conference on 3rd April in Rotterdam, there was a great deal of discussion around the question of how vital it is for the party to develop a thorough financial policy. In my view this is certainly of enormous importance, even if only to be taken seriously in national politics, or if only to demonstrate that we would make the rich pay for the crisis. And that is precisely what the provisional election programme does: €10 billion earmarked for social reconstruction, despite which our total budget makes savings of €10 billion. The way I see it this a unique performance. Brussels could and must give a helping hand here – the EU offers a great deal of scope for savings!

Waste was an important theme in the European election campaign, and it remains so. Although I have already spent a good few months in Brussels, I'm still amazed by the number of lobbying offices here from local and regional authorities. If you wanted to, you could spend the whole of your time running from one reception with regional specialities to another, or from one meeting concerning local development plans to a similar one down the road. And all of this because there is money to be made in Brussels: the EU institutions long ago discovered that you catch more flies with treacle than with vinegar, and so in the course of time have set up one fund after another. The moneys involved are divided up via complicated systems of distribution: first, the general framework is negotiated and then a specific framework for each country is worked out. For local and regional authorities who want to profit from Brussels' pots of money, it's important to know these frameworks from the start and when possible to influence them. The lobbyists can then get to work, when it comes to the actual sharing out amongst all proposed projects.

This whole situation is good for employment in Brussels, but efficient it certainly isn't. Now that we face a massive round of spending cuts in the Netherlands, while we also have to consider a new multi-annual budget for the European Union, the moment has arrived when numerous existing funds should be abolished or thoroughly reformed. No more subsidies from the EU for the richer member states, but serious cuts in the contributions from these same states, so that the Netherlands would no longer be a net payer.

In this fashion we could achieve not only economies through a reduced contribution, but also, if there was no more money to be had in Brussels for Dutch local or regional authorities, you could redeploy those officials whose only function is to access such subsidies. Of course, other work would have to be found for them, but for the rest we would save so many costs that I wonder whether the state would need to offer the local and regional authorities involved any compensation at all. We will therefore be fighting hard during the coming discussions of the multi-annual budget, to see that this system of pumping money back and forth is ended. Hopefully other parties in the European Parliament will see eye to eye with us on this and we can do business with them.