International

European Commissioner Cecilia Malmström is continuing down the wrong path with her arbitration system – the Investor State Dispute Settlement system (ISDS), according to SP Euro-MP Anne-Marie Mineur. Mineur’s reaction came in response to the elaboration of the plans, which Malmström published today. She sees no improvement, she says, in comparison to the Commission’s previous version. Referring to respondents to the Commission’s ‘consultation’, she said that “the fundamental criticism from 150,000 people was that the ISDS represents a separate system of justice for foreign corporations, and this has not changed. The improvements are purely cosmetic. Malmström must scrap the ISDS. It’s not needed.”

‘We must make fundamental choices. Stark differences of opinion between VVD and PvdA (centre-right and centre-left parties which together form the governing coalition – translator’s note) mean that this government, in crucial matters, cannot deliver. So it has become an obstacle. The gifts have all been handed out, the spark has gone out of them. To major questions such as inequality and unemployment. So you have become a hindrance.’ So said SP leader Emile Roemer during today’s debate on the government’s plans for the coming year. ‘If people want to build a society which is constructed on solidarity and trust, then we must and we will answer this call. A country is more than a plc, politics is more than management. After years of crisis we must make room for a new, social politics, in which we can offer people renewed security. Society is crying out for solutions to huge social questions.’