Nieuws van de afdeling

5 December 2010

SP: stop misuse of taxpayers’ money

Taxpayers’ money is being misused on a massive scale in the EU. ‘It is unprecedented that at a time when European governments are having to impose massive cuts, taxpayers’ money intended for weaker regions is going directly and in huge quantities to multinationals, the arms industry, and even the Italian mafia,’ says SP Euro-MP Dennis de Jong in reaction to the results of an investigation by the Financial Times into the European structural funds.

5 December 2010

Dutch Parliament to German Reichstag: War criminal Faber must be punished

Leaders of the Dutch Parliament’s various political groups have written a letter to colleagues in the German Reichstag requesting that they ‘do all they can to ensure the speedy imposition of sentence on the last fugitive Dutch war criminal in Germany, Klaas-Carel Faber.’ The communal letter was written after an initiative from SP leader Emile Roemer, who was responding to a request made to him by investigative journalist Arnold Karskens during popular late-night TV talk-show Pauw & Witteman.

4 December 2010

Cancel the Joint Strike Fighter, while we still can

The Joint Strike Fighter will cost €1.4 billion more than originally calculated, bringing the total investment costs for the Netherlands to €7.6 billion. According to SP Member of Parliament Jasper van Dijk, this dramatic increase is reason enough to cancel this prestige project once and for all. He will put this proposal forward next Tuesday during the parliamentary debate on the defence budget.

3 December 2010

Adoptions across borders: Investigate Commission abuse of power

SP Member of Parliament Nine Kooiman and Euro-MP Dennis de Jong are seeking an explanation regarding reports that the European Commission has been attempting to increase its powers, using adopted children as a device for doing so. A prestigious Romanian newspaper revealed today that the Commission has put researchers under pressure to conclude that there is a need for a European Adoption Agency, a conclusion which their underlying investigation does not support. Kooiman: 'We all know about the European Commission’s greed for greater resources and more power, but that problems surrounding adoption should be exploited to further these ends is something I find appalling. Adoptive children need greater protection and great care.”

1 December 2010

Don’t turn our backs on Surinam

This week Surinam celebrates thirty-five years of independence from the Netherlands. The development relationship which once existed between the two countries has come to an end, but the election of Bouterse as president stands in the way of transition towards a normal relationship of friendship between nations. Nevertheless, the Netherlands must not turn its back on the Surinamese people.

29 November 2010

SP seeks parliamentary enquiry into negotiations with FIFA over World Cup bid

SP Member of Parliament and spokeswoman on sport Renske Leijten wants to see a parliamentary enquiry into the way in which the Netherlands’ World Cup bid came about. Her demand comes in the wake of revelations that the Ministry of Finance has known for at least a year that hosting the tournament would not prove profitable, while agreements to waive taxes are unlawful. ‘With a great deal of propaganda we are told that a World Cup will always lead to profits for the taxpayer and that the tax waivers demanded by FIFA would present no problem from a legal point of view. Now that it turns out that the ministry had other information on this, parliament must conduct its own enquiry into the negotiations which have taken place with FIFA’.

International