International

This autumn the Dutch Parliament must decide whether to lift all border restrictions on Romanian and Bulgarian migrants. In the light of the experience in the case of Polish migration, the SP is extremely critical of this opening of borders. Far more Polish workers came to the Netherlands than were originally expected, and this led to a number of difficulties on the Dutch labour market. SP Member of Parliament Paul Ulenbelt visited Romania in August to look into how the Netherlands is seen by Romanians and what the results have been to date of emigration to other EU countries.

The SP is urging the European Union to take action against market distortion in West Africa by Dutch trading companies. The Dutch firms are dumping tons of cheap meat on to the West African market, primarily consisting of pigs' trotters, tails and other parts of the animal that can be sold for very little in Europe. African farmers are seeing their business ruined by these dumping practices. In a Dutch television programme broadcast by the popular current affairs series Netwerk on Tuesday evening, the impact on Cameroon was portrayed: once flourishing pig farms now look out on scenes of cheerless desolation. Locally produced meat is dearer on the market there than are Europe's frozen surpluses.