Blog-dennis-de-jong

Blog Dennis de Jong

28 June 2015

Dennis de Jong:

Demokratia

The SP repeatedly warned that the introduction of the euro would undermine democracy. The rejection of Greece's referendum by the eurozone Finance Ministers shows the extent of the arrogance of power amongst them. The report of the 'five presidents' of European institutions, presented this week, seeks to reinforce the power of technocrats. From now onwards there will therefore be every reason to step up our struggle for real democracy in Europe. The public must have its say; the technocrats have already done enough damage.

21 June 2015

Dennis de Jong:

Does Verhofstadt really want to make a looser EU possible?

Last week the leader of the liberal ALDE European Parliament political group, Guy Verhofstadt, outlined his soon-to-be-presented report on the amendment of the EU treaties. As you might expect from a federalist, he wants to move to a real European government, but at the same time he does introduce the possibility of an associate membership for those countries which see no advantage to such a federal Europe. That would offer, to the Netherlands as well as other member states, the chance to opt out of certain matters, such as the United Kingdom already enjoys, for example in the area of justice, This fits nicely with the SP’s own programme, so it’s certainly worth studying.

14 June 2015

Dennis de Jong:

We need human scale on the internet too

The internet began life as a free space where everyone could be heard and seen and where we could sniff out new information and make new contacts, nearby or far away, but recent years have seen a growing threat to this freedom. Increasing interference from states, but also the rise of multinationals, have meant that less and less freedom remains. Now we have in addition the European Commission’s plans for a digital internal market: claiming that this is to protect the consumer, these plans give as much space as possible to big corporations at the expense of smaller providers on the internet. Time to demand, inside and outside the Parliament, that we take back the internet: we want to see the return of the human scale.

7 June 2015

Dennis de Jong:

We don’t want US conditions, so we don’t want the TTIP

This week will be tense for the TTIP negotiations. The European Parliament must vote on a motion from the External Trade Committee which, while it does put demands regarding the treaty, at the same time puts not the slightest obstacle in the way of the negotiators continuing their work. For the SP things are clear: we don’t want a single market stretching from here to Tokyo. Within the European single market there’s already enough social dumping and downward pressure on taxes, and we don’t need to add to these by adopting American conditions. That’s why we say an unconditional ‘no’ to the TTIP.

31 May 2015

Dennis de Jong:

We’ll be waiting a long time for Timmermans’ transparency

From the time of his appointment as Vice-President of the European Commission, Frans Timmermans has placed a great deal of emphasis on transparency in Brussels. As part of this he proposed the establishment of a new, improved lobby register. Now it turns out that it will probably take years to set such a register up. The SP European Parliament group is far from satisfied with this. Together with like-minded MEPs we will be stepping up the pressure over the next few weeks. Shady lobbying practices must not be allowed to continue for years and years.

24 May 2015

Dennis de Jong:

Greeks are fighting for us too

Today it was announced that Greece does not expect to be able to find the €1.6 billion it must pay to the International Monetary Fund in June in respect of past borrowing. This could end in bankruptcy. So the Greeks are playing for high stakes, but they’re not doing this for no reason. They reject the neoliberal agenda imposed by the Troika (the European Commission, European Central Bank and IMF) and when the media assert that the Greeks are ‘dawdling’, they are refusing to acknowledge that they are waging a fundamental struggle. And in this it’s certainly the case that their struggle is our struggle.

10 May 2015

Dennis de Jong:

Anti-Fraud Service OLAF still a shambles

It’s still not absolutely certain, but this week in Strasbourg we will probably be voting on a motion which is extremely critical of the European Anti-Fraud Service OLAF. This follows on a damaging report from the Supervisory Committee to the effect that OLAF is not transparent when it comes to the quality of its investigations and gives absolutely no clear information regarding the criteria which form the basis of any decision to start a fraud enquiry. And to think that the Commission wants to push through the establishment of a European Public Prosecutor on the grounds that member states do too little to prosecute alleged fraudsters. Let the European Commission put its own anti-fraud service’s house in order before they start pointing an accusatory finger at the member states.

3 May 2015

Dennis de Jong:

The internal market makes effective action on tax evasion harder

Listen to the European Commission or the European Parliament, and you’ll hear from all sides that they have been working hard to tackle tax evasion by multi-national corporations (MNCs). Yet the real negotiations are taking place in Paris, at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which brings together developed countries. One of the papers published recently by the OECD, however, reveals the fact that the rules of the European Union’s internal market in reality represent an obstacle to effective action. Nothing more has been heard about this, but it should and must be high on the European Parliament’s list of priorities.

26 April 2015

Dennis de Jong:

‘Those who feel the fire burning’

The young Dutch filmmaker Morgan Knibbe has brought out a film, ‘Those who feel the fire burning’, which deals with the hardships suffered by immigrants in Greece and Italy. There is a true ‘underworld’ in creation, parallel to the world we know, a world of poverty, violence and a tough battle to survive, a world which we can see in the United States, with its ghettoes and

19 April 2015

Dennis de Jong:

Struggle against Brussels lobbyists hots up

I am frequently asked why the SP puts such an emphasis on the Brussels lobby culture. It’s surely a democratic right to lobby for what you want to see. Of course that’s the case, but in Brussels it’s lobbyists who have ensured that corporate capital calls the shots. When it comes to the trade and investment treaty with the US, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), on which so much is riding, neither an ordinary member of the public nor any social organisation had sought such a treaty, but the corporate lobby had been pushing the idea for years, not by promoting a broad social debate on the matter, but in secret, in backrooms and corridors. By fighting back against the pervasive lobby culture, we are trying to put the public back in the driving seat, as is fitting in a democracy.

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