International

The SP has fought against Brussels interference for years, and now, with the European elections in the offing, you are starting to hear other parties too suddenly calling for fewer Brussels rules and regulations.

The social democrats and centre-right in the European Parliament will, after the elections, simply return to pushing one law after another through. Their position is, however, not only hypocritical, but also asocial: from the hard right Wilders to the centre-left Timmermans, they all want first and foremost to scrap the rules which are ‘a burden to business.’ Most of these are laws governing working conditions and the protection of the environment. As for rules which are ‘a burden to all of us’, such as laws on liberalisation of public services and ‘economic governance’, you won’t hear a thing, however. Fighting against Brussels meddling is a great idea, but let’s make sure it’s the right struggle we’re conducting.

By coincidence they both came out this week: the report that Wilders had commissioned on the consequences for the Netherlands should we withdraw from the EU, and the vote in the European Parliament on a report on ‘better regulation’. One of the big savings which withdrawal from the Eurozone would enable us to make would come, according to Wilders’ study, from the fact that we would be free from the Brussels rules ‘by which businesses are burdened’. Now there are a great many Brussels rules and regulations which are burdensome to ordinary people and the self-employed, but these are entirely different from the rules and regulations which the multinationals find burdensome. At the SP, when we think of Brussels’ interference we think in the first place of the rules concerning economic governance, which enormously weaken the budgetary rights of our national parliament, and of course of the interference from Brussels in our public services, such as energy provision, water supply, public transport, health care and education.

When we think of bad rules we also think of rules which may perhaps be favourable to major corporations but which cannot be followed by small and medium-sized enterprises. For example, we want to see the reform of European laws which give too much protection to those granting franchises. This concerns branches of companies that at first glance look like chains, but which are essentially parts of a partnership of independent operators. According to the association representing this sector, ever less is being left to the entrepreneurial ability of the franchisee, because the ‘formula’ allows ever less freedom and an increasing proportion of the profits, moreover, is absorbed by the granter of the franchise.

Wilders, along with Prime Minister Mark Rutte, Sybrand van Haersma Buma of the centre-right CDA, and the Labour Party’s Frans Timmermans now want to cut a swathe through the Brussels rules and regulations that business finds burdensome. In this the hard right PVV, the centre-right VVD and CDA and the centre-left Labour Party (the VVD’s coalition partner) are taking the side of the multinationals and leaving the trade union movement, consumers’ groups and environmental organisations out in the cold. The SP, on the contrary, is 100% social, which means that we want to cut a swathe through asocial rules from Brussels, to get rid of economic governance and those unnecessary aspects of the internal market which mean that our public services are given over to the free market. So this should really concern the rules and regulations with which the multinationals have no problem and about which you hear nothing from the other parties. Their struggle is an asocial struggle against rules which protect us all and for rules which benefit the multinationals. For the SP the task is to unmask this and fight against Brussels’ asocial rules and regulations.