International

"In the last few years, in relation to the economy, what we've heard is 'big is beautiful'. The bigger a bank, the bigger the profit. That was the idea, and this idea has landed us with big problems. That is why the SP wants to see a fundamentally different economy, one in which it is not the size of the bonus paid to the manager which is seen as the gauge of a firm's success." This is the message which Dennis de Jong, leader of the SP's European Parliamentary group, brought to the world's major financial and economic institutions during a working visit to Geneva and Basel.

The Netherlands should send a proposal for a European tax on SMS or text messages directly to where it belongs – the rubbish bin. That was the reaction of SP Member of Parliament and European Affairs spokesman Harry van Bommel to leak European Commission documents which revealed that the EU's unelected executive is seriously considering a whole range of European taxes, including one on text messages. The aim of the tax measures would be to finance the EU's own budget.