International

Scarcely a day before the scheduled debate on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) between the European Union and the United States, European Parliament president Martin Schulz has removed both the debate and the planned vote to establish the Parliament’s opinion from the agenda of the plenary, sending the report back to the Committee on International Trade, a move agreed by committee chair Bernd Lange. Schulz cited the large number of proposed amendments as the reason for his decision, but the SP’s European Parliament team have their doubts.

In the absence of a political solution, the military mission in Iraq is doomed to fail, according to SP Member of Parliament Jasper van Dijk in response to what he observed on his two-day visit to the Dutch armed forces in Iraq and Jordan. ‘The Netherlands’ efforts offer no solution to the enormous problems in Iraq,’ he insists. ‘This must first and foremost address the structural exclusion of Sunnis from political power. As long as Sunnis don’t have the full influence they should enjoy, military deployment is pointless. Furthermore, the western military presence increases the chances of renewed violence against Europe and the United States.’