Nieuws van de afdeling

7 May 2013

European Commission breaks rules on access for lobbyists

SP Euro-MP Dennis de Jong is to ask the European Commission for an explanation of contacts between Commission staff and tobacco lobbyists.

7 May 2013

Artist Ai Weiwei doesn’t expect greater freedom in China

On the second day of our visit to Beijing we met a number of creative people and political activists. Most striking was Ai Weiwei, the enfant terrible of the contemporary Chinese art scene. We met him in ‘art district 798’, named after one of the factories which once operated there. Nowadays it teems with art galleries and artists’ workshops.

6 May 2013

EU fails to tackle bank regulation

SP Euro-MP Dennis de Jong is not satisfied with recently adopted bank legislation. ‘Without further new legislation there remains a real risk of a renewed banking crisis in Europe,’ he says.

27 April 2013

EU must hold Hungary to its commitments

The European Union says that it wants to become a community of values, yet Hungary, a member states, isn’t taking the rule of law at all seriously, in the opinion of SP Member of Parliament Harry van Bommel.

26 April 2013

Council of Europe wants answers on abuses in Netherlands’ reception of asylum seekers

Has the Netherlands not listened to the Council of Europe’s warnings regarding the treatment of asylum seekers in detention centres? This question was put by Andreas Gross and the SP’s Tiny Kox, presidents respectively of the European Social Democrats and the European United Left in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) to the Committee of Ministers of the pan-European treaty body, which monitors the protection of democracy, the rule of law and human rights in forty-seven member states.

26 April 2013

Sanctions against Burma still needed

Last Monday the EU decided to lift all sanctions against Burma, with the exception of an arms embargo. This was not an intelligent decision. The upsurge of religious violence within the country has not been adequately combated by the authorities. Pressure from abroad remains necessary to encourage Burma to continue to make progress, as there have indeed been positive reports regarding an independent press and the freeing of political prisoners; the EU is wrong, however, to abolish sanctions. Many major problems continue to dog the country.

International