International

The opportunities for tax avoidance offered by the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and other trade treaties represent the umpteenth disaster in a thoroughly disastrous dossier. This was the SP’s response to a report published yesterday by the Transnational Institute (TNI) and Global Justice Now. Although countries are adding explicit reservations regarding tax issues to trade treaties to which they are party, it turns out that corporations still see an opportunity to bring and even win arbitration cases in relation to taxation.

Volkskrant editor Bert Lanting is unimpressed by the criticisms of the EU Association Agreement with the Ukraine lodged by Jan Roos of GeenPeil, the group whose initiative led to the referendum on the issue. That’s understandable, in that Roos boasts of never having read the text of the treaty, which is rather silly. But that Lanting himself tells us that there’s nothing wrong with the agreement, when he hasn’t bothered to look at the relevant parliamentary debate, is harder to understand.

The treaty with Ukraine will not benefit the fight against corruption. This struggle in desperately necessary in a country where corruption hasn’t just harmed the system: corruption is the system. That’s why Ukraine has a high score in the corruption index. One Dutch company, the shipbuilder Damen Shipyards, found that out the hard way.

The PvdA (Labour Party), the junior partner in the Netherlands’ coalition government, is no longer an opponent of airstrikes being carried out by Dutch F-16s on ISIS targets in Syria. This is a remarkable decision, because the arguments against bombing used by this party in the recent past are still valid. The civil war in Syria has already led to the deaths of more than 260,000 people and created tens of millions refugees. From humanitarian considerations it’s clear that intervention is needed, but the lessons of previous interventions must not be forgotten. For these reasons we were pleased by the Labour Party’s refusal to give its support to airstrikes. Its leader, Diederik Samsom, was right to observe that what was needed first was a political plan for the future of Syria. There is still a need for such. Warring parties are arguing about who gets a seat at the negotiating table.

In her role as Chair of the EU Council of Trade Ministers, Dutch minister Lilianne Ploumen – a member of the Labour Party (PvdA) - has put the signing and provisional coming into force of the controversial Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement with Canada (CETA) on the agenda for the International Trade Council meeting scheduled for May 13th. This was revealed by the still unpublished agenda which the SP has managed to get hold of. In doing this, Ploumen is bypassing the European Court of Justice, which still has to give its advice on the question as to whether such treaties are an exclusive EU competence or whether the member states also have the right to take decisions independently. The SP calls on Ploumen to make signing the treaty conditional on the agreement of the member states’ national parliaments.

The struggle against terrorism and for the protection of the constitutional state should not be at odds with each other but, on the contrary, ought to be mutually reinforcing. To fight terrorism by restricting human rights is to play into the hands of the terrorists. Member states of the Council of Europe have the right and duty to protect their citizens from terror. At the same time they must continue to guarantee the fundamental values of the European Convention on Human Rights. Only in that way can terrorism be defeated. A resolution to this effect was adopted this week with broad support by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE). PACE also voted in favour of a large number of amendments from SP Senator Tiny Kox, who chairs the United Left Group in the Assembly. The amendments were designed to make the fight against terrorism in the future more efficient and more effective.