International

Last year Trade Minister Lilianne Ploumen was arguing in favour of a ‘reset’ of free trade policy aimed at making fairer agreements. Yet she seems to have few concerns about the new, CETA-like accord with Japan, say Anne-Marie Mineur and Jasper van Dijk.

With his deal on the European Union’s Association Agreement with Ukraine, Prime Minister Mark Rutte is cheating those who voted to reject the treaty at the referendum on April 6th. “This deal is a shameless whitewash,” says SP Member of Parliament Jasper van Dijk. “The voters gave a crystal clear result at the referendum. They said ‘No’ to the Association Agreement. The only correct option was therefore to reject the treaty.”

In a joint declaration, the European Parliament’s cross-party Intergroup on Integrity, Transparency, Corruption and Organised Crime and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) have called on the European Commission to at last exhibit openness about its anti-corruption policy. The call was also supported by Council of Europe body the Group of States against Corruption, known by its French acronym of GRECO. SP Euro-MP Dennis de Jong, who is co-chair of the Intergroup, explained that “not only with the European Parliament but also in the UN and the Council of Europe the Commission has nothing to say about the reports on combating corruption in the EU, and in particular within the European Union institutions. In holding its tongue in this way the Commission is giving licence to countries both inside and beyond the EU to join them in failing to meet their reporting obligations.”

European cooperation is a fine idea. But a line must be drawn through Brussels’ meddling and the further development of a European superstate, with its total freedom for big capital.

“Despite all of the government’s fine words, and especially those of Labour Party Employment Minister Lodewijk Asscher, temping agencies and gangmasters are being given a free hand to bring hundreds of thousands of eastern European workers here and exploit them by means of pay which amounts to dumping.” So said SP leader Emile Roemer today on national television. The SP wants to see these rogue agencies and employers tackled in as tough a manner as possible and fined accordingly, with permits introduced for the employment of workers from central and eastern European countries.