International

660 delegates this evening, during the 13th SP National Conference in Nijmegen, voted by a large majority to endorse the Conference Paper ‘Heel de Wereld’ (The Whole World). In Heel de Wereld the party sets out the medium term direction of its international policy. “The Netherlands and Europe are too small for the SP. Today we want to talk about the SP in the whole world,” SP Member of Parliament Harry van Bommel told the conference.

In a packed and swelteringly hot Vereeniging, the concert hall in Nijmegen where the SP gathered, the national conference, the party's supreme policy making body, debated the conference paper 'Heel de Wereld' point by point. In order to make clear the intertwining of problems currently facing the world and the need for a common struggle against poverty and war, the SP had invited Brazilian MP Maurcio Rands, a member of President Lula's Workers' Party to address the conference. In a fiery speech, he gave a fascinating insight into what makes a successful progressive social policy, such as that being applied in Brazil.

Jonas Sjöstedt, Member of the European Parliament for the Swedish Vänsterpartiet (Left Party), strongly attacked the European Constitution, which he argued stood in the way of the possibility of any such policy in Europe. Sjöstedt, who led the Swedish Left Party's successful campaign for a 'No' in the referendum on accession to the euro, was the ideal choice to give the keynote speech from a distinguished foreign guest, a feature of many SP Conferences. Condemning the proposal as a neoliberal policy disguised as a constitution, he argued that it was an attempt to usurp the people's democratic right to decide on the economic system under which they wished to live.

Watch Jonas Sjöstedt's whole speech (in English, Real video)