International

Secretary of State for Social Affairs and Employment Henk van Hoof is seeking to delay the opening of borders to workers from the new EU member states until 1st January 2007 instead of the coming 1st May, as previously announced. SP Member of Parliament Jan de Wit, however, is not convinced that the government, despite its statement to the contrary, will in seven months' time have the measures in place which are needed to deal satisfactorily with evasion of labour laws and with unfair competition. “Mr Van Hoof clearly has a completely erroneous picture of the consequences which will follow the opening of borders. In Ireland they have had two years' experience of this and fully 5% of the workforce is now Polish. Even if the proportion of our workforce turned out to be half of this, we'd be talking about 175,000 people. But of course the Netherlands is rather nearer to Poland than is Ireland, and Poland is not the only new EU member state, so the proportion would probably be greater rather than smaller.

The Canadian hunting season has opened. This means that up to 350,000 seals will in the coming weeks be clubbed to death for their pelts, some of them being skinned alive. The Dutch government is waiting for European measures which will ban the import of seal furs, but SP Member of Parliament Krista van Velzen doesn't agree that we should rely on others to take action. In an open letter to Foreign Minister Ben Bot, she urges that immediate measures be taken by the Netherlands and asks the minister to take a stronger line with the Canadian government.