Nieuws van de afdeling

14 June 2012

Law against compulsory tendering in public transport well-received

On Thursday the legislative proposal brought forward by SP Member of Parliament Farshad Bashir, together with Labour’s Jacques Monasch, Kees Verhoeven of the centrist D66 and Ineke van Gent of the Green Left was debated in Parliament. This proposal would, if accepted, make it possible for the Netherlands’ four major cities - Rotterdam, Utrecht, Amsterdam and The Hague – to maintain their public transport in public ownership, as they would no longer be obliged to put their systems out to Europe-wide tender.

14 June 2012

Van Bommel and AI present Russian Ambassador with report on violence in Syria

SP member of Parliament Harry van Bommel, together with the director of Amnesty International today presented a report on the violence in Syria to the Russian ambassador. In doing so they were urging Russia to put more pressure on Syria to put a stop to violence against civilians. Russia is Syrian President Assad’s most important ally and has in the past supplied the country with large amounts of weaponry. The presentation of the report followed a silent march of around a hundred Syrians and Dutch sympathisers which ended at the Russian embassy.

14 June 2012

'High price for bringing the 2013 deficit under 3%'

A high price will have to be paid for bringing the budget deficit for 2013 down below 3% of GDP. This was the conclusion of SP Member of Parliament Ewout Irrgang after examining the analysis of the austerity agreement between the outgoing governing parties and certain opposition groups conducted by the official state Central Planning Bureau (CPB), and the projected budget deficits from 2013 to 2017. 'We are paying a high price for the enormous spending cuts in the agreement,’ says Irrgang. ‘Already feeble economic growth will become even lower as a result and unemployment will increase with 100,000 people once again added. The budget deficit will have gone down only slightly because the cuts will lead also to much lower tax revenues as a result of their negative effects on the economy.'

14 June 2012

SP and D66 nominate Ugandan gay rights activist for Dutch human rights prize

Euro-MPs Sophie in 't Veld of D66, one of two Dutch parties affiliated to European Parliament Liberal group ALDE, and the SP’s Dennis de Jong today nominated Ugandan gay rights activist Frank Mugisha for the Mensenrechtentulp (Human Rights Tulip), the Dutch government’s annual human rights prize. The nomination was made in the name of the EP’s Intergroup on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transsexual rights, a cross-party group of concerned MEPs. As director of Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG), Mugisha has shown exceptional courage, putting his own life in danger to fight for the rights of homosexuals and other sexual minorities in Uganda. His predecessor, David Kato, was murdered last year.

14 June 2012

Cosmetics firms lobby in Brussels to have ban on animal testing postponed

It now seems that the ban on testing of cosmetics on animals is threatened with postponement. The SP in the European Parliament, together with the two centre-left Dutch parties Green Left and Labour, are working with Dutch anti-animal testing group Proefdiervrij (Lab Animal-Free) and have asked the European Commission to confirm that it will not give in to pressure from the cosmetic industry. The industry is conducting a vigorous campaign in favour of delay.

13 June 2012

Gesthuizen: 'Judicial test essential to cooperation over criminal law in Europe’

‘It’s bad that the Netherlands will from now on be obliged to cooperate in the collection of evidence at the request of another EU member state, without this being subject to the judgement of our courts. Legal protection for the Dutch citizen is being steadily eroded.’ So says SP Member of Parliament Sharon Gesthuizen, who is incensed that her proposal for improved legal protection for Dutch people in relation to cooperation over criminal law in Europe failed yesterday to win support from either the outgoing governing centre-right parties, or the centre-left Labour Party.

International