Nieuws van de afdeling

3 February 2009

Senate poses new questions on Iraq war

On 17th February several of the political groups in the Senate will put new questions to the government regarding the controversial Dutch involvement in the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The cabinet's decision earlier this week to establish its own Committee of Enquiry has been noted by the Senate. For the time being senators are assuming that their questions will, as is customary, receive a timely answer from the government.

2 February 2009

Iraq Commission outrageous obstruction of parliamentary democracy

“The old boys network must be planning to whitewash Balkenende,” concluded SP leader Agnes Kant following the Premier's declaration this afternoon, in which he announced that the government would be conducting its own enquiry into Iraq. The announcement follows moves in the Senate to open a parliamentary enquiry into the decision-making procedures which led to the Netherlands' 'political support' for the US-British invasion of Iraq in March, 2003. The cabinet, Kant said, is pushing the Parliament out of the way, which she described as 'completely unacceptable.'

30 January 2009

What future for bees?

The bee population is in trouble. Not only – to put it a little tactlessly – because the number of bee-keepers is declining as old apiarists die out and go unreplaced. But also because the number of bees is itself in sharp decline. There is less pollen and less nectar. This decline is caused by genetically modified plants and flower seeds.

29 January 2009

Holocaust denial by Catholic bishop: 'Government must summon Vatican representative'

Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen should, in the opinion of SP Member of Parliament Harry van Bommel, summon the Vatican's diplomatic representative in the Netherlands, Apolstolistic Nuntius Francois Robert Bacqué, to explain last weekend's rehabilitation by the Pope of holocaust denying British bishop Richard Williamson.

29 January 2009

Van Bommel demands explanation over allegations of deal on Iraq invasion

SP Member of Parliament and foreign affairs spokesman Harry van Bommel has asked Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen for an explanation of claims by former US State Department Under-Secretary Richard Armitage that the Netherlands was paid by the United States for its support for the invasion of Iraq. “If this was the case, they would be shown to have been hand in glove. I just want the government to say whether or not this was true.”

29 January 2009

Brussels lobbyists boycott register

Self-regulation doesn't work: 80 per cent of Brussels lobby firms make absolutely nothing public via the European Commission's voluntary lobby register. Any citizen anxious to keep a check on the powers-that-be in Brussels will find that he or she will be left in the dark when it comes to the existence of such firms, their names, their clients and the money sloshing around the city's lobbying sector.

International