International

For the eighteenth year in succession, the European Court of Auditors has withheld approval of EU’s accounts. The number of errors relating to expenditure detected by the Court of Auditors has grown from 3.7% to 3.9 % of the overall budget of €129.4 billion, amounting to some €5 billion. ‘While in the past the percentage of errors was at least falling a little year-on-year,’ says SP Euro-MP Dennis de Jong, ‘it has risen since the present Commission came into office from 3.3% to 3.9%. Pumping moneys back and forth between national capitals and Brussels and back again, poor monitoring by the member states are leading to needless waste of taxpayers’ money. Even a relatively simple proposal such as the demand for an explanation of the accounts per member state has not been accepted by this Commission. That’s why the situation is continuing to deteriorate each year. We have to stop pumping money about and, for example, by introducing such national audit certification, improve the monitoring in the member states.´

SP Member of Parliament Nine Kooiman describes herself as ‘pleasantly surprised’ by remarks made by Amsterdam Mayor Eberhard van der Laan, of the centre-left Labour Party, who has stated that tourists will not be banned from using the Netherlands’ ‘coffeeshops’, where sale of limited quantities of cannabis is tolerated. He says also that he has discussed the matter with the minister responsible, Ivo Opstelten of the centre-right VVD. ‘That’s good news for all local authorities,’ says Kooiman. ‘Because what Amsterdam can do, so can the rest of the Netherlands. We have nothing to gain by excluding tourists from coffeeshops throughout the country, which would simply boost the illegal street trade, benefiting no-one.’