Nieuws van de afdeling

11 June 2013

A European public prosecutor’s office? Not while OLAF needs straightening out

Yesterday it was announced that former European Commissioner John Dalli would not be subject to prosecution before the Maltese courts, despite an investigative report from EU fraud watchdog OLAF which implicated him. Commenting on the affair, SP Euro-MP Dennis de Jong said: ‘Up to now I didn’t really believe that Dalli had been sacked by Commission President Jose Barroso because his proposal for new tobacco legislation was badly received by the tobacco lobby, but that there was reliable evidence that he was involved in corruption. The decision of the Maltese judged demonstrates, however, that OLAF messed up, which is why I’m demanding a comprehensive enquiry into just what is going on. In my view the position of the head of OLAF, Giovanni Kessler, has become untenable.´

10 June 2013

Bradley Manning trial is threat to press freedom

It seems very much as if the United States government is using the trial of whistle-blower Bradley Manning to limit the role of the media as the watchdog of democracy , argues Harry van Bommel.

10 June 2013

Then and now: Greece’s debts

It was at the end of 2009 that Greece announced that its budget deficit and national debt were much higher than had previously been stated. In the months that followed the interest rates on loans which the country had to pay on the financial markets rocketed. Bankruptcy loomed. The European Union, together with the International Monetary Fund, took the decision to extend a loan of €110 billion. An important motive behind the loan was the fear that without it other Eurozone countries would be forced into bankruptcy. In addition, there was uncertainty as to whether the banks in Europe which had lent Greece a great deal of money would survive the country’s bankruptcy.

8 June 2013

‘The Netherlands must protect its citizens from Big Brother America’

‘American spies who keep people under surveillance against the wishes of our government; American firms which, in conflict with our laws, hand over data on Dutch citizens; an American secret service which keeps an eye on Dutch citizens’ use of the Internet. It appears as if the government of the Netherlands has completely handed over responsibility for the privacy of Dutch citizens. In doing this our governments falls well short in the fulfilment of its fundamental tasks.’ So said SP Member of Parliament Ronald van Raak in reaction to the news that the United States National Security Agency, the NSA, has for several years collected data on Dutch citizens who use Google, Facebook, Youtube, Apple, Microsoft, Yahoo, Paltalk, AOL or Skype.

6 June 2013

Syria demands realism, not moralism

‘Civil war is the worst kind of war there is. People who just lived side by side together up until then turn things into a battleground.’ I often heard my mother say this. I suspect that she gained this wisdom from the reports that must have reached her between 1936 and 1939 about the Spanish Civil War. In recent decades we have seen how ‘the worst’ can turn out: Croatia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Rwanda, Congo, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Egypt, and now Syria.

4 June 2013

Van Bommel: ‘Violence against Turkish demonstrators is unacceptable’

SP Member of Parliament Harry van Bommel is calling on Minister for Foreign Affairs Frans Timmermans to call Turkey to account over the excessive violence used against demonstrators and to urge restraint. ‘Human rights organisations are right to criticise the extraordinary levels of violence that followed the huge, overwhelmingly peaceful demonstrations which have taken place in Turkey,’ says Van Bommel. ‘It is of enormous importance that the Netherlands make its concerns over this known.’

International