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Blog Dennis de Jong

30 September 2018

Golden cages and slave shackles in the European Parliament

A few years ago I used to regularly write about the ridiculously high salaries paid to EU officials. These salaries remain extremely high, and for that reason few of these employees ever leave. They do find this frustrating, however, because they often don't come into consideration when it comes to internal promotions, with more senior posts going to political appointees. Moreover, not all positions are all that lucrative. Recently there was discontent among canteen workers. Now it's the turn of attendants at the House of European History to sound the alarm. They don't work directly for the European Parliament, but respectively for a catering firm and a 'payroller', a company which exists purely to provide labour-related services for other firms, and which don't always look too closely at the working conditions of people they hire. Amongst the museum attendants, there's even talk of modern slave labour. Rich or poor, a great many employees are experiencing frustration, and this must be ended.

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23 September 2018

Should we be bothered about who succeeds Juncker?

Last week was loud with the buzz of rumours. Would the Dutch Commissioner Frans Timmermans put himself forward as the leading candidate of the centre-left for the position of president of the European Commission? On the centre-right side, would it be the German Manfred Weber, the Frenchman in charge of negotiating Brexit, Michel Barnier, or even the Slovak Maroš Šefčovič? And does it really matter? The SP has never seen any value in this system. It's not after all about electing a president of the United States of Europe, but merely a top official. And yet the propaganda circus is once again running at full speed.

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16 September 2018

A golden share for the workers? That's what's happened in Rotterdam

Foto: Rene Boulay

SP leader Lilian Marijnissen summed it up beautifully during yesterday's launch of the SP campaign 'Time for Justice' on the dock in Rotterdam: we want a golden share for all workers. No more takeovers against the wishes of the employees. Donner's bookshop in the same city is an example of this. Spirited workers saved the firm from bankruptcy and are now to a large extent the boss of the company. Later this year I'll be organising a meeting on this in the European Parliament, because European company law is about to be revised. It's time for justice – time for a golden share.

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12 September 2018

Can a Federal Europe ever be democratic?

The most europhile MEPs, often from the liberal ALDI or Greens, have united in what they call the Spinelli Group, named after the founder of the European federalist movement. Last week they brought out a new manifesto, in which they make a number of proposals for a sovereign and democratic Europe. But could a United States of Europe ever be truly democratic?

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2 September 2018

Human rights are about more than individual rights

Next Tuesday, together with Christian Union MEP Peter van Dalen, I'll be presenting the annual report we put together on behalf of the European Parliament Intergroup on Freedom of Religion or Belief and Religious Tolerance. In this report the emphasis will be on the collective aspects of this freedom. Too often human rights are seen as individual rights in the style of 'I have to do this, so it must be allowed.' But all of your human rights are protected, your privacy as well as your rights as part of a community. Take for example your freedom to organise in a trade union, or the many social rights which a properly functioning welfare system demands. You don't hear much about this from politicians on the right, but these same politicians are demolishing communities in rapid tempo. It is precisely that – working together for a better world - that for me is the core of human rights.

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26 August 2018

One movement isn't the same as the others

Movements are arising in the European Union. Macron has his ‘En Marche’, which he wants to see also established at the European level. There's a movement of 'progressive youth', Volt, aimed at a European superstate. And then there's Jean-Luc  Mélenchon's 'La France Insoumise’ (LFI), which he also wants to broaden into a European movement, 'Now, the People’. Three movements, each completely different from the other, but if it's justice for all that moves you, it's only the latter, Mélenchon's, which is of any real interest.

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5 August 2018

Barnier should be more flexible over internal market in negotiations with UK

The European Union's Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, found it necessary in a recently submitted article to remind the British once more that the internal market is one and indivisible. If the UK doesn't accept free movement of persons and of services, then there will be no free movement of goods. There is a reason for this rigidity. Whatever we may hear about a social Europe, the core of the existing form of European integration remains the insistence that there is one market and that this can't be avoided by national action. The Brexit referendum revolved around the questions of free movement of persons and services, rather than trade in goods. Rather than reconsidering matters in the light of these concerns, Barnier is slamming the door in Britain's face. This is a foolish response to the UK, but also to other member states where people have similar concerns.

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22 July 2018

Small businesses want to restrain the market power of corporate capital

Brussels is the paradise of market fundamentalism, which is why it's all the more striking that in recent weeks we have spent so much time in the European Parliament Internal Market Committee on intervening in the market to prevent the exploitation of small firms. There are thousands of examples of unfair practices by big corporations in their treatment of smaller companies. This gives me another reason to want to tackle dishonest trading methods, but as long as we fail to do something about market domination and recognise that corporations can be too big, we'll be mopping the floor without stopping the flood at its source.

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15 July 2018

European Commission shouldn't be afraid of its own whistle-blowers

Just a week to go until the summer recess, but there's still hard work to be done around the European Commission's proposals for the protection of whistle-blowers. What's striking about these proposals is that they offer protection to all whistle-blowers everywhere, except in the EU institutions themselves, which go unmentioned in the proposed legislative text. This fits a trend, where the Commission is happy to tell the member states what they must do, but lags behind when it comes to its own practices.

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8 July 2018

Heavy workload, but here's how the European Parliament could take things a little easier

With two weeks remaining before the European Parliament's summer recess, most of my fellow MEPs are becoming more than fed up with the ever-growing pressure of work. On 27th June mainstream media reported that according to the Austrian EU presidency, which began on 1st July, 200 legislative proposals had been presented. Yet the European Commission and the European Parliament have themselves to blame, at least in part, for this. Below, a few ideas for slowing down a little.

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