International

The government is refusing to make serious adjustments to the ‘Sleepwet’, the proposed law extending the powers of the security services, despite the clear no in the referendum on the issue. The SP agrees that our secret services must be able to pursue concrete suspicions of terrorist activities, but not with the collection of random data from innocent people. Interior Minister Kajsa Ollongren has renewed her promise that the security and intelligence services would apply the law with caution, but has refused to remove their right to collect random data in the ‘sleepnet’. This undermines any faith in government promises and completely ignores the voters’ ‘no’.

“This is the beginning of the end for ISDS”, says SP Euro-MP Anne-Marie Mineur in response to the claim from Dutch company Achmea against the Slovakian government, a claim thrown out today by the European Court of Justice (ECJ). The judgment calls into question some 200 arbitration sections in around the same number of investment treaties between EU member states, but also offers encouragement in the fight waged for several years against the inclusion of such sections in the trade and investment treaties which the EU is currently seeking to conclude with countries and blocs outside the Union.

We were after all clear enough about this: treaties such as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, the TTIP, are not wanted. Nobody's got anything against trade which is fair, but what we don't want are the sort of measures from the European Commission which mean that it's party time for multinationals. This was shown by the number of signatures on petitions, the number of letters I received from people in all walks of life, the huge numbers of demonstrators who got out on the streets, and the incomparable number of people who took the trouble to participate in the debate. Yet in the new mega-treaties that are on their way – with Mexico (population 124 million), Japan (126 million) and the Mercosur countries of South America (126 million) - there is nothing to suggest that the Commission has listened to what the people want for as much as a second.

Millions of people are being forced to leave their homes by dire poverty, terrorism, natural disasters, human rights abuses or war. A long, hard path awaits them. Reports appear by the week of refugees who failed to survive their flight. We must tackle the fundamental causes of this situation. That means halting the bombing and the unjustifiable wars, stopping facilitating tax evasion and tax avoidance, and giving priority to combating poverty and inequality instead of to profits.

SP Member of Parliament Sadet Karabulut, together with fellow MPs from the Green Left and the PvdA (Labour Party), has put a series of parliamentary questions to the government on American plans to modernise the B-61 nuclear bomb. The B-61 is a US nuclear weapon housed in Volkel and can be deployed using the F-16 warplane.

Early last week foreign affairs commentator Jan van Benthem of the national daily newspaper Nederlands Dagblad condemned the bloody attack in Afghanistan in which the Taliban used an ambulance to deliver a bomb. He coupled this condemnation with a call not to let up on the fight against the ultimate evil which is terrorism. In this, Van Benthem found it necessary to attack supporters of a different, more effective approach, including the writer of this article. He even gave the impression that I was lacking the moral conviction to oppose this evil.

Hundreds of children have died in Yemen during the past year as a result of air raids conducted by a coalition led by Saudi Arabia, while numerous schools, hospitals and mosques have been damaged. SP Member of Parliament Sadet Karabulut is urging Foreign Minister Halbe Zijlstra to do all he can in the UN Security Council to bring about a cease-fire by all parties in Yemen. The Netherlands is currently in the second of its two-year term as a non-permanent member of the Security Council. “The bombing must stop,” says Karabulut. “The blockade must be lifted so that food aid and medicines can reach the Yemeni people. And we need an arms embargo to be imposed on the countries taking part in the bombing.”

As a result of the world-wide process of neoliberal globalisation and the disappearance of the East Bloc as a rival superpower, advocates of the free market have the upper hand almost everywhere. Nationalist and right-populist parties with their 'own people first' message are generally enjoying more success in spreading their political message than are socialist parties and movements.