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Blog Dennis de Jong

12 October 2014

Dennis de Jong:

Rid the world of poverty, starting with Europe

15th October is the International Day against Poverty. In the European Parliament we will spend the whole afternoon in conversation with representatives of organisations fighting poverty and with people who are themselves in a situation without prospects. The central question will be: can we combat poverty via the European Union? My answer is that at the end of the day you can best tackle poverty on the national and local level, but the EU could at least ensure that European measures don’t contribute to poverty.

5 October 2014

Dennis de Jong:

For Timmermans, things are getting tense

Dutch candidate-Commissioner Frans Timmermans (photo: Roel Wijnants / CC BY-NC 2.0)

Tuesday the hearing takes place of Dutch Foreign Minister Frans Timmermans, who has been nominated for the European Commission. It’s the last of the series of such hearings, although there could still be supplementary sessions with candidates who haven’t done so well the first time around. Things could be tense for the Dutch candidate: to date he has done everything by the book, and he is well-known on the international stage. Nevertheless, being from the centre-left Dutch Labour Party, he could fall foul of the row between centre-left and centre right, a victim of the political establishment’s scheming. In my role as a Member of the European Parliament I don’t go along with such things. If Timmermans adopts socially progressive policies and puts a distance between himself and the corporate lobby, I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.

28 September 2014

Dennis de Jong:

Behind the scenes in Brussels

During the next two weeks the European Parliament will be holding hearings for each of the candidates for the European Commission. In the media you’ll be hearing mostly about the candidates who face difficulties, such as the Spaniard Miguel Arias Cañete, who is to take responsibility for climate and energy policy, but who was until recently himself up to his ears in oil, at least as far as his share portfolio is concerned. What you won’t hear about so readily is what goes on in the back rooms. Business conducted there is just as important for the future.

21 September 2014

Dennis de Jong:

Juncker’s new team

Beginning on 19th September, Euro-MPs will be getting the measure of the European Commission team proposed by newly-appointed Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker. I doubt that there’s much chance that all candidate-Commissioners will make it over the finishing line; there are too many unsavoury stories about at least two of them. We’ll be reading a great deal about these in the next few days and weeks. But whatever else happens, the Juncker team, possibly with a few substitutes for the rejected nominees, will prove to be just as voracious as its predecessors. A different Europe requires more than the changing of the guard at the Commission.

14 September 2014

Dennis de Jong:

Why have a Brussels statute book?

It hasn’t received much media attention but this spring the Commission revealed its plans for the development of a European statute book. In practice this concerns private law, trade law, consumer law and criminal law. If it’s left to the Commission, these statute books will in time make large parts of national law redundant. What you will have then, as a matter of course, is ‘federal’ administration of justice. I’m curious to know whether Minister of Foreign Affairs Frans Timmermans sees this as something ‘big’ where Europe should be big or whether he will reject the plans as an unnecessary smash-and-grab on the member states.

7 September 2014

Dennis de Jong:

Manipulation of economic news

During the European elections it appeared that the eurocrisis was more or less over. More than that, we were told that it was thanks to the euro that we had so quickly beaten this crisis. A transparent trick: we knew already by then that after the campaigns had ended the economic news would rapidly grow worse. And that’s just what has happened. You have to ask yourself how often Brussels thinks it can treat the electorate like fools.

24 August 2014

Dennis de Jong:

Basic goods V - Getting out of the rat race

Following their listing of basic goods, the things people actually need, in their book How much is enough? the Skidelskys made concrete proposals as to how to escape the rat race of ‘more, more, more’. In this last blog on this subject the question of what we can do about this as the SP’s European Parliament group takes centre stage. Another Europe is possible, but it will require an end to the domination of Eurocrats and of major corporations.

17 August 2014

Dennis de Jong:

Basic goods (IV) – Free Time

The Skidelskys, in their book How much is enough?, correctly list free time as a basic good. In their critique of the way in which the market has to a large degree taken over our lives, the Skidelskys argue that we should have more free time, defined as time that one can spend on what gives you satisfaction – non-material satisfaction – and serves no other purpose. This form of free time has become ever scarcer over the last few years. In my view, this is no coincidence.

10 August 2014

Dennis de Jong:

Basic goods (III) – Security

Robert Skidelsky, photo Chris Boland, CC

In each part of this series of ‘summer blogs’, one of the basic goods identified by the Skidelskys in their book How much is enough? takes centre stage. Instead of a society in which everything is determined by the market and by an everlasting hunger for more money and more consumer goods, the Skidelskys search for a different kind of society, one which revolves around truly essential things. Having dealt with health, respect and friendship, this time I will look at ‘security’.

3 August 2014

Dennis de Jong:

How much is enough: On basic goods (II)

The father and son team of Robert Skidelsky and Edward Skidelsky, in their book How Much is Enough? criticised the way in which present society aims only at economic growth. Our values are increasingly economic values, in which profit maximisation takes pole position, even in public institutions. They argue against this and list a number of basic goods, things you really must have. After writing last week on health as a basic good, I will this week discuss ‘respect and friendship’.

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