International

Wednesday saw a demonstration against the deportation of 21-year old Wime, who comes from Angola. Wime has been in the Netherlands since he was ten years old, but does not fall within the rules laid down by the child amnesty, under which certain groups of people who entered the country as minors may be given residency rights, as it is six months too late for him to make an application. Wime is not the only person, moreover, for whom this is the case. ‘This young man was one of those children who arrived in the Netherlands just too late to be considered for the general amnesty in 2007, but who are just too old to qualify for the child amnesty,’ explains SP Member of Parliament Sharon Gesthuizen. ‘Yet these children have grown up in our country and feel that they are Dutch. Their country of origin is by now unknown to them; they simply aren’t rooted there and feel themselves to be at home here.’

At a meeting of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, which brings together wealthy industrialised countries, SP Euro-MP Dennis de Jong proposed the establishment of an inter-parliamentary group to keep up the pressure for application of the G20 initiatives to counter tax evasion. The proposal was accepted by the OECD, with the result that such a network will be established in the near future. ‘The OECD does all of the preparatory work for the G20 and is as things stand the place where the struggle against tax evasion is carried out on an international level,’ explains De Jong, adding that this means that ‘it’s important that national MPs as well MEPs are informed about the latest developments and also that they can act as a sounding board for the OECD itself. Otherwise there’s a danger that negotiations between the OECD member states will suffer serious delays. It’s our task, as well as that of the NGOs, to stay on top of matters here.’