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20 February 2009

Subsidies for EU-critical party give Green Left a heartache

As a European political party, Libertas, founded by the Irish group of the same name which formed an important element in the Irish campaign for a 'no' to the Lisbon Treaty, will be able to claim subsidies from the European Union. This is the same for all political parties who fulfil the criteria for registration as a 'European political party'. Some people find this objectionable, because Libertas is critical of this EU and continues to oppose the Lisbon Treaty, which is almost identical to the 'European Constitution'. Although the 2008 campaign in Ireland was organised principally by the left, the contribution of the centre-right Libertas cannot be ignored. Now the group has announced that it will be standing candidates, in principle throughout the EU, in the coming elections for the European Parliament.

20 February 2009

Fears over future of accommodation bureaux

Local authority rules governing the activities of accommodation bureaux could lose their validity as a result of the application of a new European Union directive. In the Netherlands, these bureaux must be licensed by local councils. In the EU's view, this represents an unfair market restriction: all firms must be able to participate in the market without having to obtain a licence. SP Euro-MP Erik Meijer is urging the European Commission to give a clear indication of whether the Dutch system, which guarantees fairness and efficiency, will become illegal when the Services Directive is written into the country's law.

19 February 2009

Euro-critical President 'welcomed' with chorus of boos

President Klaus of the Czech Republic was this morning booed and jeered by Euro-MPs from the European Parliament's three biggest political groups. Following their display of yelling and shouting, many of them walked out of the Brussels hemicycle. Their problem? Vaclav Klaus's opinions on how to bring about a better Europe differed from theirs.

19 February 2009

Consumer wants clear food labels, not a forest of statistics

"I'd rather just wait for the arrival of clear food labels. It makes no sense to rush this through just because there's an election coming. That will simply mean that the consumer is once again saddled with incomprehensible food labels which are of no help in making informed choices."

18 February 2009

Proposed measure on imports of illegal wood 'full of holes'

In this week's meeting of the European Parliament Environment Committee, SP Euro-MP Kartika Liotard gave voice to strong criticism of the EU's passive role in relation to the protection of tropical forests and the interests of the indigenous peoples who depend on the forest for their survival. She described the European Commission's proposed measure, purportedly intended to combat the import of illegally-sourced wood, as 'full of holes so wide you could drive a truckload of timber through them.' Liotard noted that the Commission had failed to formulate any policy goal for the measure.

18 February 2009

Dutch citizen sentenced to thirty years in Iran: did Abdullah Al Mansouri receive a fair trial?

Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen must make a statement regarding the plight of the Dutch-Iranian Abdullah Al Mansouri, whose family says that he has been sentenced in Iran to thirty years in prison. “The Dutch government says that it knows nothing about this man's condemnation to a lengthy jail sentence and that is most strange” says SP Member of Parliament Harry van Bommel. “Our ambassador in Tehran should, if he had taken note of the unanimous urging of Parliament, have followed the trial, attended hearings and informed the Minister of Foreign Affairs about what was occurring. This appears, therefore, not to have happened.”

International