International

Anyone who says, as Justice Minister Ivo Opstelten does, that the regulation of soft drugs – rather than an absolute ban – is in conflict with international treaties, should take a closer look at the history of how these treaties came to be, as well as treaty law and international developments.

The anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International (TI) today launched ‘EU Integrity Watch’, a database giving details about the moonlighting jobs held by Euro-MPs. Commenting on the initiative, one of SP’s own MEPs, Dennis de Jong, said ‘A few years ago I contributed to the writing of the Code of Conduct for Members of the European Parliament. With this we wanted to put an end to all forms of corruption and shady practices by Euro-MPs and in particular to prevent conflicts of interest. TI’s overview shows that Euro-MPs, over and above their more than ample salaries and expenses, moonlight for thousands of euros per month. I want as quickly as possible an end to be put to this by the imposition of a limit on such earnings. In addition, when reports are allocated to Members we need to take a much closer look at where they are getting their additional earnings. MEPs should not be writing reports on subjects in which as a result of their sidelines they have a personal interest.’