Nieuws van de afdeling

4 July 2013

SP: 'Governing coalition parties offering too little help to Syrian war refugees’

For SP Member of Parliament Sharon Gesthuizen, Secretary of State For Security and Justice Fred Teeven is giving too little attention to the life-threatening problems by which some 1.7 million Syrian refugees are beset. Referring to the United Nations High Council for Refugees (UNHCR), she says that the organisation ‘has issued an urgent call to the European Union to take in 12,000 Syrian refugees in urgent need or to offer them temporary asylum. I couldn’t believe my ears when Teeven told me this week that the Netherlands is willing to offer aid to no more than 150 refugees in 2013. That’s 2% of the total requested – truly unbelievable!'

3 July 2013

EU fraud watchdog OLAF still under fire

03-07-2013 • The European Parliament today voted on the work of EU fraud watchdog OLAF. In particular, the sloppy way in which it conducted the investigation into former European Commissioner John Dalli and the violent quarrel between Italian OLAF chief Giovanni Kessler and the supervisory committee are making it necessary to tighten OLAF’s reins still further. SP Euro-MP Dennis de Jong, commenting on the matter, said ‘it’s clear that in the Dalli affair serious mistakes were made. It’s disappointing that the European Parliament has not chosen to tighten up the rules, but it has at least confirmed that a great deal must change at OLAF and that’s something.’

3 July 2013

Dutch Parliament sets up own investigation into American espionage

The Parliament of the Netherlands is to establish an enquiry into how the United States has been spying on the Dutch people and what the government knew about it. The enquiry was proposed by the SP and has the support of the centrist opposition party D66, as well as the parliamentary groups of the governing coalition parties the PvdA (Labour) and the centre-right VVD. SP Member of Parliament Ronald van Raak described the government as ‘deafeningly silent’ on the matter and expressed satisfaction that Parliament is itself taking responsibility for conducting an investigation.

2 July 2013

Brussels must not leave truck drivers out in the cold

SP Euro-MP Dennis de Jong this morning handed over the first available copy of ‘De Chauffeur aan het woord’ (‘The Driver Speaks’) to European Commissioner for Transport Siim Kallas.

2 July 2013

Eric Smaling, SP Member of Parliament in Turkey: broad resistance in Istanbul

SP Member of Parliament Eric Smaling reports on a visit to Istanbul for a conference of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

29 June 2013

Government should offer apologies for shameful history of slavery

On 1st July 1863 celebratory cannon shots were heard In Surinam. They signalled the end of slavery in the Dutch colonies. Our country was one of the last in Europe to move to abolition, and tens of thousands of slaves were freed. 150 years on, it’s high time that the government at last offered an official apology for this shameful history.

International