International

The SP has, not for the first time, tabled questions to the Christian Democrat-Labour coalition government on the subject of Labour's apparent policy of using public money to further the party's ends, rather than the national interest. Labour Party (PvdA) Secretary of State for Europe Frans Timmermans set off last week, along with a coterie of Labour's great and good, on a pro-EU tour organised by a bureau of prominent PvdA personalities, This would have been unobjectionable had it been financed by the PvdA, rather than by the taxpayer.

However, “the initiative '27 hours for Europe' had a strong flavour of Labour,” was the conclusion drawn by SP European affairs spokesman Harry Van Bommel. The events involved were organised by a company, BKB, run by prominent Labour personalities. Many prominent Labour figures took part in these events, including Minister of Education and Culture Ronald Plasterk, Secretary of State for Public Health Jet Bussemaker, and the mayors of Rotterdam, Groningen and Utrecht.

Labour Secretary of State for Europe Frans Timmermans

“It's quite clear that this became no more nor less than a propaganda tour, an opportunity for Labour's enthusiasm for the EU to be heard loud and clear,” said Van Bommel. “Virtually nothing was said about the criticisms with which people in the Netherlands have responded to such matters as the over-hasty expansion of the European Union, the bureaucratic character of the EU and the democratic deficit. This tour became nothing but a propaganda festival, paid for out of our taxes.”