International

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.

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.

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.

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.