International

In the view of SP foreign affairs spokesman Harry van Bommel, 'NATO 2020', the new proposal for the reorganisation of the alliance brought forward by a commission under Madeleine Albright, is fit only to be thrown away with the garbage. The former US Secretary of State presented the proposal for a 'new strategic concept' yesterday in Brussels. While Van Bommel says that he is pleased that NATO's function has been discussed, but notes that the proposal endorses NATO's growing practices of the last ten years. "The war in Afghanistan has been a major embarrassment, but this is not admitted publicly," says Van Bommel. "In addition, no breakthrough is foreseen in the direction of any strengthening of the international rule of law in the form of the UN, while the nuclear strategy remains unchanged."

Professor Mario Monti today presented the report on the European internal market which he has written at the behest of the European Commission. SP European Parliament group chair Dennis de Jong responded positively to the report, in which Monti makes a number of proposals designed to increase support for the internal market amongst the broad public. Monti contends that the internal market must be orientated more towards the human and the social, something which the SP has long urged. De Jong is unhappy, however, with the proposal that health care be treated as an internal market sector, arguing that ’health care is no market’.