Nieuws van de afdeling

19 April 2013

Six parties vote for no confidence motion against Security and Justice Secretary

The SP group in the Dutch National Parliament this morning joined several other opposition parties – the Christian Democrats, centrist D66 and Christian Union, the Green Left and the Animals’ Party - this evening in voting to support a motion of no confidence in Secretary of State for Security and Justice Fred Teeven. The motion formed the culmination of a debate on the death of Russian asylum seeker Aleksandr Dolmatov who was unjustly placed in detention and failed to receive the necessary medical care or legal counsel. Eventually Dolmatov committed suicide in his cell. ‘The Secretary of State dismissed Dolmatov’s death as a unique incident,’ says SP Member of Parliament Sharon Gesthuizen. ‘He said he was sorry, shifted the guilt away from himself and will go on in the same old way. I find that shocking.’

17 April 2013

De Jong: European Parliament must keep better accounts of its own spending

The European Parliament today voted on the European Union institutions’ accountability for their expenditure, which of course includes spending by the European Parliament. SP Euro-MP Dennis de Jong describes the failure to require accounts for the whole of European Parliament spending as ‘unacceptable’. Most importantly, the lack of accountability for MEPs’ own spending from so-called general expenses is an embarrassment. 'It’s inexplicable that the EU is imposing strict spending cuts on everyone else, while Euro-MPs are dead set against transparency regarding their own expenditure,’ says De Jong. ‘I’ve presented a proposal which would mean that MEPs would have our spending from our general expenses monitored annually. That this proposal was rejected by a slender majority is extremely disappointing.’

16 April 2013

De Jong: EU banking regulation ‘as full of holes as a Swiss cheese’

The European Parliament today voted to approve a new set of rules governing banking. SP Euro-MP Dennis de Jong described the new regulations, known as the CRD IV package, as ‘full of holes, Swiss cheese legislation. In some parts, such as those governing leverage limits to which the bank must conform, the rules are an improvement on current regulations. There are big gaps, however. The liquidity demands will only be phased in from 2015 and the leverage ratio which specifies how much a bank can lend in relation to its available capital, from 2018.'

13 April 2013

Inland waterway barge workers demonstrate for better conditions

Over five hundred inland waterway barge owners and workers from the Netherlands, Belgium and France today demonstrated in Brussels for better conditions in the inland water-borne freight sector. Addressing the demonstrators, SP Member of Parliament Farshad Bashir said, ‘In the whole of Europe there is a crisis in the transport sector, both on road and on inland waterways, causing a great deal of personal tragedy through countless bankruptcies.’

12 April 2013

There’s more going on in Russia than just homophobic law

Protests surrounding the visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin to the Netherlands on 8th April are almost wholly concerned with the anti-gay law currently being enacted in his country. Although this law is absolutely unacceptable, the virtually exclusive attention paid to it be politicians and the media is indefensible, as there are a great many more, and more serious, human rights abuses being committed in Russia which are crying out to be noticed.

12 April 2013

Gesthuizen: 'Dutch asylum policy utterly inadequate’

Secretary of State for Asylum and Immigration Fred Teeven today published the results of an enquiry into the suicide of Russian asylum seeker Aleksandr Dolmatov. What has emerged is that everything which could go wrong did go wrong. Dolmatov was held unjustly in custody, his legal counsel was poorly organised and medical care hopelessly inadequate, a point to which the SP has called attention time after time only to be met by a shrug of the shoulders from the government.

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