International

EMILE ROEMER • How long will the world continue to accept the existence of places like Dadaab, the huge refugee camp by the Somalian border? This was what I and party colleagues Ewout Irrgang and Eric Smaling were asking ourselves in May, during our visit to Kenya. The situation in the camp has become daily more hopeless. Insufficient food, inadequate education for the children and, worst of all, inadequate housing. And the flood of refugees has grown by the day. The situation in Somalia is, after years of lawlessness, ever more hopeless.

SP Member of Parliament Ewout Irrgang is urging a recall of the legislature in order that Prime Minister Mark Rutte can be quizzed over the apparent addition of €50 billion to the rescue package for Greece. ‘Last Friday, Rutte was talking in terms of 100 billion or so, including the contribution from the banks,’ says Irrgang. ‘Now it turns out that the European taxpayer and the IMF will be paying the whole of that sum, while it is becoming increasingly obvious that many banks have no interest in paying anything towards solving the problems which they themselves caused. I want Rutte to explain how this blunder could occur.”