International

It could scarcely be more symbolic. On May 9, Europe Day, the great and the good of the European elite assemble in a picturesque village in Romania, the EU's most corrupt country, a country which is currently heavily interfering with the rule of law in order to enable politicians who have been found guilty of fraud to avoid punishment. An excellent place to have an informal chat about the future of the European Union. It could scarcely be more symbolic, but it could certainly also hardly be more cynical.

The Senate's annual debate on the state of Europe and the European Union – known by its Dutch initials as the AEB – was this year even more important than usual, as SP Senator Bastiaan van Apeldoorn noted in his contribution to the discussion. "On 23rd May we elect the European Parliament in the midst of Brexit, discussions around NATO, China and a European army, and an ever more unpredictable United States under President Trump, he said. “The SP shows that there's more to vote for than on the one side europhoric parties that want nothing more than to give more power to Brussels and on the other side xenophobic nationalists looking to turn their backs on European cooperation and do nothing about cross-border problems.”