International

SP Euro-MP Dennis de Jong sees promising developments in the protracted debate over ‘expert groups’ between the European Parliament and the Commission. This week De Jong received a letter in which European Commissioner Maros Šefèoviè stated that he wanted to hold talks on expert groups with the Parliament. ‘These shadowy back-rooms have long been a subject of annoyance for the Parliament, and the Commission has until now kept the door to them firmly closed,’ says De Jong. ‘But it now looks as if this door has been opened a chink. This step in the right direction has not come a day too soon, but I will grasp the Commission’s outstretched hand with both of my own.’

At least seven Commissioners are participating in the annual European Business Summit in Brussels on 18th and 19th May. Yet only one is attending the four-yearly Congress of European Trade Unions to be held this week in Athens. ‘In these times, when working people are being asked to make sacrifice after sacrifice, you might expect the Commission to be listening a little less to major corporations and rather more to the trade union movement, for example,’ says SP Euro-MP Dennis de Jong. ‘I find it extremely disappointing that relations here are once again so lop-sided.’