Nieuws, August 2017

29 August 2017

SP and Labour Euro-MPs demand immediate action on truck drivers’ safety

Foto: Diederik van der Loo

The safety of lorry drivers on European motorways is increasingly under pressure. SP Euro-MP Dennis de Jong and PvdA (Dutch Labour Party) MEP Agnes Jongerius today received a petition signed by 8,000 drivers which sounds the alarm bells. “It’s scandalous that national governments aren’t even doing anything about providing secured parking for trucks, while drivers are faced with increasing violence and criminality,” says De Jong. “The governments of the Netherlands, Belgium and France are together responsible for the major routes between our country and Calais, but are doing far too little. Today, as well as accepting the petition, Agnes Jongerius and I have also written to Dutch Infrastructure Minister Melanie Schultz van Haegen and her Belgian and French counterparts urging them to meet urgently to discuss and take measures to guarantee drivers’ safety. These should include not only secured parking places but also an alarm line for drivers that really works, as well as the police and courts making it a priority to tackle incidents quickly and effectively.”

21 August 2017

Time for an offensive to keep energy company sustainable and in public ownership

State-owned energy company Eneco is threatened with privatisation. The city council executive in The Hague, as well as those in Rotterdam and Dordrecht have spoken forcefully in favour of the sale. This is outdated policy, based on outmoded ideas. It’s time to launch an offensive to keep Eneco sustainable and in public ownership.

15 August 2017

Time for quicker procedures and a better system for children seeking asylum

Asylum procedures must be speeded up, and improvements effected to the ‘kinderpardon’, the system for dealing with children who have long been resident in the Netherlands but who have no legal right to be here. In making this point, SP Member of Parliament Jasper van Dijk was reacting to the deportation of the mother of three children who have already lived for nine years in the Netherlands . “This distressing deportation is the result of the fact that such long-lasting procedures are possible at all,” he said. “The children are the victims of a bad policy. This could be prevented by ensuring that families who have no right to be here are dealt with more quickly and that extended procedures with no chance of success are opposed. This would mean that something could also be done about a kinderpardon system which actually works, by giving parents who have made themselves available to be returned to their countries and the children of such parents, children who have lived here for more than five years, a residence permit.”

14 August 2017

Beckerman: ‘Costs of climate policy must be more fairly divided’

“It’s unfair that households rather than polluting corporations are footing the bill for the climate problem,” says SP Member of Parliament in response to new figures published by the Netherlands’ Central Statistical Bureau (CBS). The figures demonstrate that of the more than €25 billion which the government received in climate taxes in 2016, two-thirds was paid by domestic users. “Of course a great deal of money has to be invested in the climate policy,” Beckerman adds, “but that must be done fairly. The corporations that cause the greatest damage to the climate are contributing relatively little, while households which are far less polluting pay a great deal more. This will result in all the will to tackle the climate problem being frittered away.”

International