International

The heads of state and government of Europe turned much of their attention today to the commemoration of the end of the First World War. That's a good thing, because every war was and is one too many. But the French president Immanuel Macron chose to make this the start of his campaign for the European elections. Showing his colours, he entered the liberal 'family' of which the Dutchman and member of the ruling VVD party Hans van Baalen is the chair, the ALDE. In doing this they are identifying themselves with the europhile 'centre', according to which next year's elections revolve around whether you are for or against European cooperation. This is all simply a smokescreen. The real choice is between still more neoliberal predatory capitalism, and a just society where it isn't Shell and Unilever but the workers and small firms who call the shots. In other words it's between the right, which includes Macron, and parties such as the SP. Time to turn off the smoke machines and clear the air. Time for justice.

The Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is even less popular than before' following the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Attacks on human rights defenders in Saudi Arabia, the complete lack of freedom of religion and opinion and the Saudi involvement in war crimes in Yemen: the international community knew about those things. But Khashoggi is another question, one too obvious to ignore. Yet I'm not optimistic. As long as the interests of big capital weigh more heavily that those of the people, the US and European commitment to human rights will remain utterly hypocritical.

In the Netherlands, Parliament has repeatedly discussed the contacts maintained in connection with the abolition of the tax on dividends between Prime Minister Mark Rutte and other members of his government on the one hand, and multinationals such as Shell and Unilever on the other. All we got by way of enlightenment were dribs and drabs. Something similar has been played out in Brussels. This week the EU Observer published an article in which it was established that virtually nothing is reported about meetings between European Commissioners and lobbyists. When things are done properly, meetings and their subjects are recorded in a register, but many social organisations complain that this doesn't tell them very much. That's why I'm happy to support the call from the EU Observer to have, from now on, proper reports made of such meetings.

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.