International

Short-term letting of accommodation to tourists via AirBnB or Wimdu has become big business. Increasingly, cities across the world are taking measures intended to restrict online platforms of this kind. The SP wants to see similar laws introduced in the Netherlands. “There is nothing wrong with temporarily letting out your house or a room, but AirBnB takes it too far, in particular in Amsterdam,” says SP Member of Parliament Sandra Beckerman. “We have to ensure that whole streets don’t end up consisting entirely of AirBnB. That’s what will happen if we do nothing. That’s what I want to prevent. What’s needed are clear rules so that AirBnB goes back to being fun.”

The internet is used increasingly to offer or obtain services. That seems handy, but it carries risks. Today the European Parliament called on the Commission to regulate this new market. SP Euro-MP Dennis de Jong explains: “Internet platforms are handy, because you can, for instance, book a cab or find someone to decorate your house. Uber and Airbnb are well-known examples. But when they break the rules which protect consumers or small service providers against abuses, these platforms are also dangerous. The European Parliament is therefore right to call for rules which offer such protection.”

Thanks to four proposals from the SP and the Labour Party, representatives of the Dutch government will be attempting in Brussels to get the new Posted Workers Directive tightened up. The Posted Workers Directive concerns employees who are sent by their firms to work temporarily in another member state, and the aim of tightening up the measure would be to improve their conditions. SP Member of Parliament Jasper van Dijk explains that this isn’t good news for foreign workers only, but for Dutch workers too, for example truck drivers. “If workers from the Netherlands and from abroad are no longer played off against each other because of unequal working conditions,” he says, “unfair competition will be reduced.”

Council of Europe anti-corruption network GRECO today presented the results of the fourth evaluation round in its annual report for 2016. What’s striking about this is the criticism of the European Commission’s lax attitude. Commenting on the report, SP Euro-MP Dennis de Jong said that “for the umpteenth time the Council of Europe” – not an EU body, but an older and broader inter-governmental organisation concerned largely with human rights and related issues – “calls on the Commission to at last do something about these evaluations. It’s depressing that in regard to such matters no progress has been made. The special contribution from European Ombudsman Emily O´Reilly does in one sense fill this gap, but at the same time has pointed out that the EU institutions’ policies on integrity still leave a lot to be desired. It’s unbelievable that the Commission doesn’t take advantage of GRECO and learn from the experiences of national governments. I’m calling on the Commissioner responsible, the Dutch vice-president Frans Timmermans, to shake the proffered hand of the Council of Europe and cooperate actively around GRECO’s evaluations.”

SP Euro-MP Dennis de Jong can find nothing positive in proposals on road haulage presented today by the European Commission.  “Only a few weeks ago  the Commission presented its ideas on a social Europe,” he recalls. “Obviously these were nothing but fine words. Now it comes down to tackling the exploitation and oppression of truck drivers, the Commission is opting for further liberalisation. In doing so they are proposing to legalise what up until now has been illegal. Drivers can clearly expect nothing from this Commission.”

After the voters had given a clear NO to the Association Agreement between the EU and Ukraine, the Senate has followed Parliament's Lower House in voting to accept the controversial treaty and bring it into force. 'The reason for this was the about-face by the centre-right CDA.,' explains SP Senate leader Tiny Kox. While CDA Lower House leader Sybrand Buma and his colleagues voted to reject the treaty, fearing that to vote against would increase still further the public's cynicism about The Hague and Brussels, most of the Christian Democrats in the Senate voted in favour. 'So Premier Mark Rutte has succeeded in turning a clear NO into a dubious YES. The European Commission will be cheering, but the voters won't,' Kox added.

According to the daily newspaper Trouw, I am 'polluting' the discussion of the future of the referendum. That's quite a judgment coming from such a measured newspaper, especially when it's in the editorial column. The reason for it was that I have taken on the proposal for a law introducing a binding referendum. This bill was originally proposed by a combination of Green Left, Labour and D66 and passed by both Houses of Parliament, but had to be given another reading because it required an amendment to the Constitution. In the wake of the 'no' vote in the referendum on the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement, these parties suddenly became opponents of the binding referendum and refused even to put what had been their own bill forward once more. In doing so, they were acting contrary to the Constitution.

Today the Dutch national Senate debated the European Union’s Association Agreement with Ukraine. Below is an edited version of the contribution to the debate of SP Senator Bastiaan van Apeldoorn. The Senate will return to the issue on May 30th when it votes on whether to accept the treaty.