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Nieuws, March 2018

6 March 2018

Parliament supports SP: Failing Brussels Fake News Bureau Must Close

A majority in Parliament's main legislative chamber today supported a proposal from SP Member Peter Kwint and MPs of the centre-right governing party the VVD. The government will now be obliged to put pressure on the EU authorities to close the controversial fake news bureau, 'EU vs Disinfo'. The bureau's ostensible function is to combat fake news, but it has itself issued false report after demonstrably false report. “The government didn't want this, but Parliament was insistent,” said Kwint. “We don't want Brussels bureaucrats distributing seals of approval for so-called 'good' journalism and scolding 'bad' journalists. No government should be starting down that road.”

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5 March 2018

Brussels should leave our free press alone

Monday, Dutch public news channel NOS broadcast a special programme on fake news. They had good reason to. We are confronted by fake news more than ever before. Any nutcase with an internet connection can throw out into the world the greatest nonsense possible. And if foreign powers want to interfere with our elections, the security services have to be on the ball. In addition, a permanent commitment to critical learning about how to deal with sources and with information is needed.

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1 March 2018

EU has still learnt nothing from opposition to TTIP

We were after all clear enough about this: treaties such as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, the TTIP, are not wanted. Nobody's got anything against trade which is fair, but what we don't want are the sort of measures from the European Commission which mean that it's party time for multinationals. This was shown by the number of signatures on petitions, the number of letters I received from people in all walks of life, the huge numbers of demonstrators who got out on the streets, and the incomparable number of people who took the trouble to participate in the debate. Yet in the new mega-treaties that are on their way – with Mexico (population 124 million), Japan (126 million) and the Mercosur countries of South America (126 million) - there is nothing to suggest that the Commission has listened to what the people want for as much as a second.

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