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Nieuws uit 2008

29 May 2008

Suspended Afghan MP deserves support

On Monday evening SP Member of Parliament Farshad Bashir met with Malalai Joya, a suspended Afghan parliamentarian. Bashir told her that the SP was following her situation closely and attempting to bring it to the attention of the Dutch government.

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29 May 2008

SP welcomes near-total ban on cluster munition

SP Member of Parliament and defence spokeswoman Krista van Velzen is “very enthusiastic” over the unexpected turn taken by negotiations, currently taking place in Dublin, on a new treaty governing the use of cluster bombs. Van Velzen, present as an observer at the diplomatic conference where the negotiations are proceeding, says that “many delegations wanted to make the proposed treaty even stronger, although the Netherlands wanted to weaken it somewhat. But after a week and a half of negotiations there was a breakthrough, a sudden realisation that without compromises there would be no treaty at all. Every participating country has now voted for a near-total ban on cluster bombs.”

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28 May 2008

A plea to the Irish People: Vote No!

Three years ago, an overwhelming majority of the electorates of two of the European Community's founding member states voted to reject the European Constitutional Treaty. In France and the Netherlands, despite solid backing from mainstream political parties and organisations representing both sides of industry, this latest step in the top-down integration of Europe failed to win support. The only democratic course would have been to consign it to history and, after widespread consultation, present the peoples of Europe with a real alternative vision of the Union of our nations.

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27 May 2008

Chancellor Merkel and NATO chief De Hoop Scheffer: ‘parliaments should debate NATO reform’

The parliaments of NATO's member states should be involved in discussion of NATO's new strategic concept. The existing 'strategic concept' was adopted in 1999 and is considered outdated. Speaking at this week's meeting of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly in Berlin, General Secretary Jaap De Hoop Scheffer and German Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel both expressed the view that NATO must work with countries outside the alliance and with other international organisations in a global security structure. SP Senate leader Tiny Kox, who together with SP colleague Senator Arjan Vliegenthart is a member of the Netherlands' delegation, responded.

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26 May 2008

Last chance for referendum on EU treaty

Tomorrow and Thursday will see the debate over the proposal from the SP and other parliamentary groups for a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty – the successor to the European Constitution rejected three years ago by Dutch and French voters.

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26 May 2008

Berlin refuses to say Yes to Lisbon Treaty

The refusal of the German federal state of Berlin to vote in favour of the European reform treaty – the Lisbon Treaty – sends a message to voters in the Netherlands and France who three years ago rejected the - to all intents and purposes identical - European Constitution. Yet their governments nevertheless chose to approve the new treaty, said Oskar Lafontaine in an address this weekend delivered in Cottbus at the congress of his party, Die Linke (The Left).

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