International

"On the basis of the conclusions that this government has drawn from the Iraq report, the SP parliamentary group can have no confidence that the same mistakes won't be made again,” said SP leader Agnes Kant in the debate on the government's reaction to the Davids Commission's report on the decision-making process which led to the N Netherlands' political support for the war in 2003. “The cabinet has learnt lessons, but these concern in every case the form, and not the content. There is no acknowledgement that the government of the day gave its support to an illegal war."

Things certainly aren’t going smoothly with the euro. The problems are piling up. Differences between the participating countries are simply too great. A single European monetary policy isn’t enough, it seems. The example of Greece, taken to the cleaners by this business, proves that. The problems did not begin yesterday. On the contrary. Things were actually going wrong as soon as the euro was introduced. In the Maastricht Treaty, which established the rules for the euro’s introduction, could be found a number of agreements, dealing, for example, with budget deficits and state debt. Already numerous countries have gone against these agreements, including France and Germany. Because no real penalties were established, each country can go its own way.