International

On Friday 1st May the SP will kick off its campaign for the European Parliament elections which take place on 4th June. SP national Chair and former leader Jan Marijnissen, current leader Agnes Kant and Dennis de Jong, number one on the list of candidates, will use what will be a festive gathering to explain why the SP's campaign slogan is 'The Netherlands wants less Brussels'.

The SP will in the coming weeks be fighting an intensive campaign in the streets and the media. In the last few weeks a large number of enormous posters have already begun to appear, with '61.6%' at their centre, a reference to the proportion of the Dutch electorate which voted to reject the European Constitution. “This is an excellent chance to call the Christian Democrats, Labour Party and Liberals to account for having ignored the first referendum and blocked a second,” said Dennis de Jong, referring to the three parties' refusal to support a popular vote on the Lisbon Treaty. “These parties are increasingly Europhile and have nothing to say to the people, who are expected to simply accept the introduction of the euro, a treaty which is identical in all important respects to the rejected Constitution, and in the near future the accession of countries such as Turkey. We want people to be listened to, and we are doing just what two-thirds of the Dutch electorate have asked for, which means less Brussels.”

This is the central slogan in the campaign – 'The Netherlands wants less Brussels' – as De Jong explains: “Brussels is meddling, bureaucratic, too expensive and neoliberal. The SP is fed up with this Brussels. We want international cooperation instead of being dictated to.”