Nieuws van de afdeling

9 April 2020

International solidarity in times of corona-crisis

Foto: Sander van Oorspronk

In times of crisis, international solidarity is more than ever necessary, simply because this is the most civilised way to deal with the problem. By cooperating we can better protect people's health and maintain as far as possible our employment and our productive capacity. It makes a mockery of things to be falling out at European Union at such a time, and to be widening the economic differences between northern and southern states. We need to cooperate in our approach to the fight against the coronavirus, out of respect for all the people who now stand in the front line of our public services, indebted as we are to these soldiers in the line of fire.

26 September 2019

Three questions about the negative interest rates

Foto: SP

Interest rates are at an historic low and even threaten to become negative. This is creating problems for almost all pension funds in the Netherlands, forcing them to reduce eight million pensions. Saving could begin to cost money, rather than producing gains in the form of interest payments. We put three questions on the issue of the low interest rates and the European Central Bank to SP Member of Parliament Renske Leijten.

20 September 2019

SP Senator brings Russians back to Council of Europe

Foto: SP

After five years in the wilderness the Russian Parliament, has at last sent representatives to PACE, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg. SP Senator Tiny Kox served as an important architect of the Russian return to Europe's oldest treaty-based organisation. “The growing tension threatens everyone in Europe,” he says.

20 August 2019

Another threatening letter from a gambling boss in Curaçao

Foto: SP

Recently a car from 'Top Couriers' came to the SP (Socialist Party in the Netherlands), with an 'urgent letter' for Ronald van Raak. The letter came from mBet Solutions, an online gambling company that operates internationally from Curaçao. The gambling company threatens me with a legal process, following a broadcast from BBC Radio about the online gambling industry. Another threatening letter from a gambling boss, that was a while ago. In 2016, Mafia boss Francesco Corallo sent his lawyer Gerard Spong to me, but he broke his teeth on this case. The same Corallo is now on trial in Italy for large-scale fraud and bribing politicians. I also received a strange report from a "detective" who by order of the former Curacao Prime Minister Gerrit Schotte came to investigate me. This Schotte has been imprisoned for three years now because he has been bribed by Mafia boss Corallo.

2 August 2019

The new Cold War: Is there a way back? Report of a visit to Moscow

Foto: SP

Introduction

From Wednesday 29th May to Saturday 1st June, we visited Moscow, Russia’s capital. We spoke with, amongst others, politicians from governing as well as opposition parties, with researchers, journalists and human rights defenders. The most important reason why we were there is that we are extremely worried about rising tension between East and West, about the new Cold War which has begun in the last few years. Following the annexation of the Crimea and the broader military intervention in eastern Ukraine, relations between the West and Russia have cooled. The shooting down over Ukraine of flight MH17 in July 2014, by means of a Buk surface-to-air missile in the possession of the Russian army, put these relations under further pressure, specifically those between Russia and the Netherlands, from where the flight departed, with many Dutch nationals on board.

2 July 2019

Chair Kox on results June session PACE

“After five years of absence, Russia finally fulfills its obligation to send a delegation from the Russian parliament to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. This puts an end to the “cafeteria interpretation” on the Russian side that a country itself decides which of the statutory bodies of Europe’s largest and oldest treaty organization it participates in and which does not.” states the chairman of the UEL Group, Mr. Kox.

International