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Blog Dennis de Jong

28 December 2014

Dennis de Jong:

2015 will be a rollercoaster year for the EU

Just a few days left before we once again celebrate the New Year. For the European Union it’s going to be an exciting twelve months: elections are coming up in Greece and Spain, elections in which the SP’s sister parties could end up taking the helm. In many other eurozone countries, things are in a real mess. More and more people are resisting this neoliberal EU. The question is, can the eurozone remain. The establishment is running scared; you can see this in the new Commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, hitting out ever more wildly. An untidy period, for sure, but also one full of opportunity. Let’s hope that by the end of 2015 we’ll have reached a turning point and that national democracies will emerge strengthened from the struggle.

21 December 2014

Dennis de Jong:

All Come Together

Foto: Markus Grossalber

In almost every church in the Netherlands the same Christmas carol is sung: “Komt allen tezamen!” Literally translated: “all come together!” Yet does everyone really mean what it says? “Together” implies that there should be no social exclusion. “Together” means practical solidarity: so you don’t, unlike the government, demand still more of those who are already having it tough. Together means that the strongest shoulders are happy to carry the heaviest loads, because by doing so they add to the meaning of their lives. Together means that everyone belongs, whatever the colour of their skin, their religion, their gender or their sexual orientation. Together means giving refugees a place where they can forget the troubles they have left behind. There is enough for everyone, but everyone must really want to come together. Can that be achieved in 2015?

14 December 2014

Dennis de Jong:

Who does Juncker think he is?

President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker this week gave the Greeks a bit of unsought advice: don’t vote for Syriza (the SP’s sister party), because this will push the entire Eurozone into crisis. A statement of this kind is unprecedented from a Commission president. A European Commissioner isn’t a minister, after all, but a kind of senior civil servant whose task is to assist the member states. Juncker wants, however, to see a real politicisation of the Commission, seeing himself it seems as a sort of prime minister or possibly as president of a federal Europe. Basically, he’s gone off his head.

7 December 2014

Dennis de Jong:

Is no-one still thinking about the banks?

All we get these days are short reports over Europe’s banks. Just as if there’s nothing left to worry about, measures needed to prevent a repeat of the financial crisis of the last few years are being watered down or sometimes not adopted at all. The Europhiles have got their ‘banking union’. Apparently it’s now less important what this banking union does, than the fact of its existence. It’s just as the SP warned. European supervision of banks is not automatically better supervision.

30 November 2014

Dennis de Jong:

Invest, yes – but not Juncker-style

For years, the SP has been demanding an end to budgetary fetishism and a commitment instead to investment. Friend and foe now admit that we were right, that the current period of stagnating growth and mass unemployment is a direct consequence of wrongheaded policies that have eyes only for budgetary deficits. Even new European Commission president Jean-Claude acknowledges that something must be done. His plans for a ‘European Investment Fund’ don’t measure up, however. They lead indeed to more power for this same Commission. A clever move, with the European Parliament again cheering them on, but this is decidedly not what the electorate in general wanted to see in May, when it voted against Brussels’ meddling.

16 November 2014

Dennis de Jong:

Don’t let truck drivers become the victims of the asylum crisis

The European asylum system stands on the point of collapse. Italy has now joined Greece in the list of EU member states which, according to the European Court of Human Rights, treats asylum seekers so badly that no further requests for asylum may be transferred there. That sort of news can be found in the media, along with tales of the terrible situation in relation to shipwrecks in the Mediterranean, through which thousands of migrants per year are drowning. Less well-known is the fact that our truck drivers are driving through the Channel Tunnel with increasing anxiety: it’s hard to prevent asylum seekers from riding in the trailer as stowaways, and the police offer no assistance, rather seeing the drivers as lawbreakers. This is completely back-to-front, and adds one more to the long list of reasons why the European asylum system must be immediately reformed.

9 November 2014

Dennis de Jong:

‘Luxleaks’ could lead to Brussels action on tax policy

Desperate needs lead to desperate deeds, as a cornered rat will demonstrate. This applies also to European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker.

2 November 2014

Dennis de Jong:

European Commission funds wrongheaded flower campaign

The European Commission is once again funding a campaign, this time to promote flowers. Apart from the question of whether it’s really necessary for the campaign to be financed from our taxes, it’s also a pretty wrongheaded campaign, one at which many people take offence. Instead of imposing additional taxes on countries like the Netherlands, the Commission would be better cutting its own spending, beginning with support for this stupid flower campaign.

26 October 2014

Dennis de Jong:

Euro-MPs’ moneygrubbing can simply continue

At the moment there’s a great deal to be done about the Dutch financial contribution to the European Union. A setback which amounts to more than €640 million, that’s no mean thing. Even if you could be sure that the money would immediately do some good, you’d still want an explanation. However, the waste of money as funds are pumped back and forth between Brussels and The Hague will go on, while this week in Strasbourg it turned out that MEPs will be able to carry on moneygrubbing undisturbed. Only for the abolition of the monthly back and forth travelling circus between Brussels and Strasbourg was there a majority, but when it came to the proposal relating to parliamentary expenses, most MEPs wouldn’t hear of it.

19 October 2014

Dennis de Jong:

Unrest in the Eurozone

Do you remember? During the campaign for the European elections the SP advocated devising a Plan B for the euro. The structural problems have never been resolved and probably never can be. We predicted at the time that the least sign of adverse weather would plunge the Eurozone into a storm of difficulties. This week one piece of bad news has followed another. The financial markets are again becoming ‘nervous’ and Greece is once more paying 9% interest on new loans. Yet any discussion of a Plan B remains taboo. In my view that’s irresponsible policy. It’s playing with fire.

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