International

Last Friday the European Parliament Transparency Intergroup, a cross-party network of MEPs, sent an angry letter to Commissioner Frans Timmermans. This year the Commission once again published a report on the member states’ anti-corruption policies, but it will include no chapter on the fight against corruption within the European Union’s own institutions. After the real mess surrounding the European Commissioners’ moonlighting, you’d expect the Commission to make this a spearhead of its approach. Timmermans refuses to do so, however, without coming up with any clear arguments against. We are in no way satisfied with this. If necessary we will demand a plenary debate on the matter, because if the Commission knows so much about how the member states should combat corruption, it should be easy enough for it to hold a mirror up to itself.

Next week the entire European Parliament will head off to Strasbourg once again. On Monday evening I am taking part in a hearing of the committee of enquiry into what has been dubbed ‘Dieselgate’, the scandal of fraudulent software in cars. The European Commissioner for the Internal Market, Elżbieta Bieńkowska, will come along to explain to us that she is not completely au fait with the precise situation with regard to this dodgy software, because the member states have not given her all of the necessary information. The EP will be eager to help get her more power in relation to the member states, but the real problems begin elsewhere: Bieńkowska is committed to competition between the establishments which test cars, as well as many other products. I’m curious to see how she reacts to the idea of reversing privatisation and in the future allowing only non-profit state-owned establishments to conduct such tests.

First of all ex-European Commissioner Neelie Kroes wrote a strongly-worded letter to The Guardian: her successor, the Dane Margrethe Verstager , must not interfere with the tax agreements between member states and multinationals like Apple.  Then, two members of the centre-left Dutch Labour Party (PvdA) repeated the argument in the Dutch daily De Telegraaf.  Apple has lobbyists everywhere. I would have expected this from Neelie Kroes, who is up to her ears in the world of the multinationals. That PvdA members lend themselves to it, however, is disappointing. That we shouldn't be putting ourselves in the hands of the European Commission when it comes to taxation policy is something that I have always argued.  And multinationals must one way or another start to pay a decent amount of tax, though neither Neelie Kroes nor the Labourites seem to be able to get this through their skulls. 

In September the European Parliament will begin its deliberations on the proposals from the Belgian Liberal Guy Verhofstadt for a superstate complete with European ministers. At the same time four eastern member states, including Slovakia, which since 1st July has held the EU’s rotating presidency, have announced their intentions to come up with concrete proposals for a looser EU, one in which national parliaments would have more say. We in the SP are against a superstate, because we believe in giving as much control as possible to people over their own lives and their own surroundings. So we see the clash between Verhofstadt – and likely many other MEPs – and the Slovakian EU presidency as a chance to present our own ideas - such as the abolition of the European Commission - formally in both the Dutch national Parliament and the EP.

Eighteen months ago the president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude  Juncker, announced that he was going to ensure that investment would return to Europe. The EU budget would guarantee €16 billion and the European Investment Bank (EIB) a further €5 billion.  Along with those sums private investors would provide additional finance. In total, €315 billion on innovative investment would be created. According to a celebratory report from the Commission, since then an agreement has been reached on €100 billion in concrete investments. But what has emerged is that the money is not only being administered by the financial ‘old boys network’, but is also flowing into the coffers of the selfsame group of chums. The Juncker fund is not only undemocratic, but on top of that it lacks both innovativeness and integrity.