International

Thousands of women in the Netherlands and throughout Europe are victims of inferior quality breast prostheses, the so-called PIP implants. SP Member of Parliament Henk van Gerven argues that now the manufacturer of these implants is behind bars the victims must become the main focus of attention. “These women have been victims of a fraudulent manufacturer who sold cheap and inferior prostheses,” he says. “Hospitals and clinics which inserted these prostheses must offer these women their help free of charge in order to prevent them becoming seriously ill when the implants leak.”

An as yet unpublished inquiry by the European Union’s Court of Auditors has revealed that European Union agencies’ accounts are in disarray and that they are guilty of massive extravagance, spending an annual total of €1.45 billion. Its examination of twenty-two of the total of forty-two agencies has convinced the Court of Auditors that they have inflated their budgets to such an extent that they have built up huge savings from the excessive amounts of money which they have received. The agencies cover a wide range of policy issues such as food safety and environmental protection, as well as matters of security and policing. Commenting on the findings, SP Euro-MP Dennis De Jong says ‘This report, which remains secret, reveals that the agencies’ office and meeting costs are a great deal higher than those of the Commission in Brussels. Furthermore they are presenting excessive budget estimates, so that despite these relatively high costs they always have money left over. I want now to see a thorough and extensive investigation into these agencies and to this effect have put forward concrete proposals both in the European Parliament Budgetary Control Committee’s 2011 payments report and in a resolution on the Commission’s budget for 2013 which will be debated in the European Parliament in Strasbourg.’