Nieuws van de afdeling

9 October 2008

Sweden refuses entry to Kosovar oppositionist Albin Kurti

The Swedish authorities refused to allow Albin Kurti, Chair of Kosovar opposition movement Ventëvedosje, to visit the European Social Forum, held in September in Malmö. Kurti could not obtain a visa and was constantly held up by bureaucratic demands which appeared deliberately designed to make his trip to Sweden impossible.

7 October 2008

Social laws flouted in road transport sector

The transposition and implementation of social laws governing conditions in the road transport industry are running hopelessly behind what is supposedly legally required. Four member states are said to be in a complete mess over the matter, but they have not been named. This has an influence on the regulation of working hours, driving times and rest periods which is bad for road safety and bad for the health of people who drive for a living.

7 October 2008

Put a stop to working 'on the black'

More than twenty percent of the paid employment done in Europe is informal, performed entirely outside the system of tax and social insurance, 'on the black'. This is damaging to our social security systems and undermines competition through the fact that a section of the market is completely corrupt, argues a proposal voted on at the European Parliament in Brussels on Wednesday.

7 October 2008

Belarussian Elections: governing party wins all 110 seats!

SP Euro-MP Erik Meijer will take the floor on Wednesday in the European Parliament on behalf of the United European Left (GUE-NGL) in the debate on the Belarussian general elections of 28th September. The elections, which employed a district constituency system decided by first-past-the-post voting, resulted in not a single opposition candidate winning a parliamentary seat.

7 October 2008

Water Scarcity and Drought

On Wednesday the European Parliament votes on the Seeber report on water scarcity and drought. “Debates on oil are fierce, so why is this not the case for water?” asks SP Euro-MP Kartika Liotard. She is currently completing a book on the subject of water policy, and will take the floor in the European Parliament debate on the subject.

7 October 2008

EU symbols: when will listening to the voters become a 'European value'?

Should the EU flag be be set down in a constitutional treaty? The Dutch Council of State, our highest court when it comes to matters of governance and law, said that it should not, unless a referendum approved it first. But anxious to avoid another flop, Prime Minister Balkenende told the European Parliament in a speech in Strasbourg in 2007 that the 'symbols' contained in the Lisbon Treaty must be removed from its text.

International