International

No day goes by without some sort of crisis in the EU. Whether it's the refugee crisis or Brexit, the Brussels elite's solution to the problems is always the same – more Brussels, a European superstate, for all your questions and answers. The coming elections for the European Parliament aren't therefore about who will be the next president of the European Commission, but about where power lies. For SP Member of Parliament Renske Leijten and Arnout Hoekstra, who will head the party's list for those elections, the answer is clear. We must move towards a form of European cooperation in which Brussels no longer plays the boss.

Negotiations on the treaty between the EU and Mercosur, which will prove profitable for – amongst others - the European automobile industry and the financial sector, continued last week. Mercosur is the South American trading bloc and customs union comprising Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Venezuela. The negotiations have for some time failed to make progress, because the Mercosur countries want to export more chicken and beef than the EU is willing to allow on to the internal market.