International

The SP is far from happy with the government’s recommendation that current Dutch EU Commissioner Neelie Kroes continue in the role. Dennis de Jong, Chair of the SP’s European Parliamentary group, reacting to the recommendation, said: “Kroes is an able woman, but she is also a free market fundamentalist. The crisis has demonstrated that Europe needs a change of course and with Neelie Kroes that isn’t going to happen.”

The likelihood that Neelie Kroes will soon be given the media and information technology portfolio is causing the SP additional concern. It was Kroes who decided that public broadcasters must henceforth seek EU permission before offering internet services such as playback of previously broadcast programmes. SP Member of Parliament Harry van Bommel notes that “For Kroes, freedom of information is subordinate to the free market. She is, as this shows, a diehard neoliberal.”
With the recommendation of Neelie Kroes, almost the whole of the proposed European Commission is complete. With a probable twelve Christian Democrats and eight free market liberals making up the majority of the twenty-seven positions, this will be the most right-wing Commission ever. “That the European Commission will soon consist of people who see the free market not as the cause but as the solution to the crisis is a token of the deep cleft between Brussels and the ordinary citizen. Worldwide, confidence in the free market amongst the general population has never been so low.”