International

That countries which don’t belong to the EU will now come under European Economic Governance reveals a dangerous level of audacity, argues SP Member of Parliament Harry van Bommel.

With a great deal of fuss, European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker and his right-hand man Frans Timmermans – until recently the Netherlands’ Foreign Minister – today presented the Commission’s new work programme. The SP finds little to commend in this programme, as the leader of the party’s group in the European Parliament, Dennis de Jong, explains. ‘Some fifty-five of the eighty proposals which the Commission has withdrawn were in any case out of date,’ he says. ‘At the same time the Commission is taking new powers to itself with this programme. They do this with the “reform contracts” in the framework of economic governance, in relation to fiscal policy and energy policy, and via the launch of a “capital union”. Moreover the Commission is using its right to withdraw proposals for its own political ends: they will withdraw a proposal if the outcome of negotiations between the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament, who between us decide the final text, doesn’t suit them.’