International

01-07-2012 • PvdA (Labour Party) leader Diederik Samson yesterday expressed sharp criticism of the SP plan to combat the crisis not through the current disastrous spending cuts, but via the ECB adopting a more intelligent monetary policy. Setting the money-presses going would not help, argues Samsom. He should read the leading American economist Paul Krugman, who finds the current demolition policy so irresponsible that a few days ago he launched the ‘Manifesto for Economic Sense’. In the space of two days hundreds of economists have signed up to this manifesto, which advocates an active government which will ensure that in time budgetary balance will be achieved, but that the race to the bottom which is the current spiral of austerity must be stopped. A monetary policy in which cash was pumped into the economy would in their view as things stand be completely responsible. A lesson for the PvdA.

This weekend I paid a flying visit to Berlin, but it was well worth the trouble to be able to appear at the Festival der Linken – the Festival of the Left - and so to have the opportunity to express our international solidarity. Throughout Europe people have had enough of neoliberalism. In Greece voters have indicated their support for a change in policy by voting for our sister party Syriza. In the Netherlands, the SP is set to make major gains in the elections on 12th September. Another, more humane Europe is not being forged in Brussels. That’s being done by the people themselves, including during a political festival of this kind where modern left parties meet to build together for a future of fairness and solidarity.

At the moment Brussels is sending out extremely mixed signals. Commissioner Rehn, a.k.a. the Commission’s Budget Tsar, remains strict in relation to countries such as the Netherlands: we shall and must come under the maximum budgetary deficit of 3% by 2013, or there’ll be the devil to pay. At the same time Brussels is saddling national governments with expensive projects and continues to dream up programmes which will cost us all deep in the purse, yet whose added value is far from clear. High time that we in the SP European Parliament team put such inconsistencies on the agenda.

Negotiations on the European law governing access to documents at EU institutions – a European Freedom of Information Act - are fully under way. The European Parliament is fighting a lonely battle in regard to these negotiations. Neither the European Commission, nor the member states, which are directly represented in the Council, are willing to reveal too much. You might have expected a different attitude, at least from the Commission, which spends millions on giving out ‘information’. But it is clearly not their intention to aid the critical member of the public. The SP takes people seriously. We don’t see them as a target group whom we must ‘inform’, but as individuals who have the right to honest and comprehensive information. That’s what we will continue to fight for in the EP.