Nieuws van de afdeling

30 May 2012

Leijten reins in the Secretary of State: EU must not review laws already adopted

By refusing to sign the law, proposed by the SP and adopted by Parliament, putting an end to compulsory tendering, Secretary of State for Health Marlies Veldhuizen van Zanten is bargaining away the nation’s constitution, says SP Member of Parliament Renske Leijten. Veldhuizen van Zanten has stated her intention to submit the law to the European Commission for approval. ‘We go over the laws we adopt ourselves,’ says Leijten, ‘and if Europe doesn’t agree with them, we’ll hear it from them. The Secretary of State is making laws adopted by the Parliament of the Netherlands subordinate to the judgement of the European Commission, and that she should not be doing.’'

30 May 2012

De Jong and Transparency International go for greater openness amongst MEPs

SP Euro-MP Dennis de Jong has joined NGO Transparency International in an initiative in favour of greater openness amongst Members of the European Parliament. Last year the EP responded to a bribery scandal by adopting a tighter Code of Conduct. De Jong was among the eight MEPs who proposed the new rules. ‘The agreements made then represent a first step in the right direction. Now it appears, however, from a report from Masters’ Students at the Free University of Amsterdam, that these new rules are insufficiently clear and that they do not go far enough. Together with Transparency International and a group of MEPs I want to get to work on improving this.’

28 May 2012

War in Afghanistan has not made good on promises

'When NATO, more than a decade ago, began to intervene in Iran, the organisation raised high expectations over the country’s future. Now the military mission is being run down, we can only conclude that these expectations have not been met.’ This was the conclusion of SP Senator Arjan Vliegenthart at the close of today’s NATO Parliamentary Assembly meeting in Tallinn, Estonia.

27 May 2012

European Parliament supports SP proposal for limits on European criminal law

SP Euro-MP Dennis de Jong is delighted with the support for his report ‘Limits to European criminal law’ adopted today by the European Parliament by an overwhelming majority. De Jong: ´There will now be clear, verifiable criteria established which will have to be met before new European rules on the criminal law are proposed. There is no room for symbolic politics or Brussels bureaucracy: only if it is clear from statistical material that a European approach would offer clear value added will the European Parliament consider new rules. That is a new and clear gain.’

25 May 2012

Kox: 'Homophobia has no place in the Council of Europe’

European human rights are for everyone, gays included, SP Senator Tiny Kox told Albania’s prime minister today in his country’s capital, Tirana. Albania will in the coming six months take the presidency of Europe’s oldest and largest human rights organisation.

23 May 2012

Van Bommel: European social growth package needed

SP Member of Parliament Harry van Bommel is urging Prime Minister Mark Rutte to make the case at tonight’s European Council Summit for a social growth package. ‘Up to now the EU has tried to combat the crisis for the most part by asocial spending cuts and what we fear is that our expectations will be fulfilled: negative economic growth and social demolition. The plans currently on the table are inadequate. Rutte must make every effort to promote an ambitious agenda of economic reconstruction and growth. That is the only way out of the crisis.

International