Nieuws van de afdeling

24 June 2011

Parliament supports SP motion: No admission for Croatia without legislature’s approval

In the near future Croatia will be faced with the task of proving that it is fulfilling the demands placed on candidates for European Union membership. Before any agreement to admit Croatia can be endorsed by the Dutch government, it will first have to be sent to the national Parliament, thanks to a proposal from SP Member of Parliament Harry van Bommel which on Wednesday won the support of a majority of his colleagues across the political spectrum. As Van Bommel explains, ‘we should learn from Bulgaria and Romania, where the admission agreements were too lax and the two countries were admitted too rapidly. That’s why I want to see the agreements with Croatia for myself, and before we take a decision over the country’s admission to the EU.’

23 June 2011

SP: ‘Ceasefire in Libya urgently needed’

SP Member of Parliament Harry van Bommel is urging that the bombing of Libya be stopped. ‘An immediate cease-fire in order to enable humanitarian aid to be offered must be the overture to a solution to this war,’ he says. The Dutch government wants to offer three months support to the NATO countries which are bombing Libya. ‘In the last three months hundreds of cruise missiles have been fired and some 4,400 targets have been bombed from the air,’ Says Van Bommel. ‘That goes much further than UN Security Council Resolution 1973 permits.’ Meanwhile, in Strasbourg, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe is also calling for a cease-fire.

22 June 2011

Mass trade union demonstration against EU economic plans

On Tuesday trade unions demonstrated in Luxembourg against EU plans for economic governance. Media sources gave the figure for participants as 10,000. The right-wing parties in the European Parliament are attempting this week to force through the controversial vote on the package of measures that the Parliament must approve before they can be introduced. Parties of the left share the trade unions’ serious objections to the proposals.

22 June 2011

SP delegation in Athens: Creditor Banks must take losses

Emile Roemer and Ewout Irrgang in Syntagma Square in Athens

22 June 2011

Don’t use crisis as excuse for Brussels’ drive for lower wages

This week the European Parliament and the heads of EU member states’ governments will decide how much power to give Europe over the national economies. Strict rules and tough accords form the basis of the soon to be introduced system of European economic governance. The hue-and-cry over Greece is overshadowing these meetings. These moves mean that Brussels is threatening to sneak in, unnoticed via the back door, rules which will impose wage restraint, leading to a situation in which, over several years, wages will not rise and may even fall.

20 June 2011

Foresight: the Euro Crisis, as seen from a decade ago and more

On the eve of the introduction of Euro notes and coins in 2001 Ewout Irrgang, a young economist and SP activist who would later become the party’s financial spokesman in the Dutch national parliament, was interviewed by the SP monthly, the Tribune: 'The introduction of the Euro is no small thing,’ he said. ‘We are dealing with the biggest monetary experiment in world history. Twelve extremely varied economies will go over, in one fell swoop, to the same currency.’

International