Nieuws van de afdeling

12 August 2008

Seven times as many Eurocrats as Commission claims

EU-critical British thinktank Open Europe has worked out that the EU employs fully seven times the number of officials as the EU would have us believe. Not 23,000, or 32,000, but 170,000, Open Europe says. The thinktank included in its count employees of thirty EU agencies throughout Europe, those in the EU's offices in the twenty-seven member states, and employees of the European Parliament and the European Court of Auditors.

10 August 2008

Look who's talking

The first thing I do in the morning when I am in The Hague is put the television on. Thursday morning was no exception. I saw US President George W. Bush turn red in the face, on his trip around Thailand, as he delivered a severe admonishment to China. He said that the Chinese leaders must respect people's liberty and comply with fundamental human rights such as freedom of expression, freedom of assembly and the rights of workers.

8 August 2008

How good is free trade?

"Free trade is good, but not just yet" was the headline above the editorial in De Volkskrant on 31st July. The editorial concerned the failure of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) successfully to conclude the Doha round. According to De Volkskrant a consensus exists around the principle that everyone benefits from free world trade. But is free trade fair trade?

7 August 2008

Ripping off the Surinamese

This summer thousands of Surinamese Dutch citizens will fly to the land of their birth, or in some cases of their parents' birth. For a limited number this is an annual event. For many more it is far more than a year between trips, and often they have to leave their children behind in the Netherlands while they go. Some of these children do not have the chance to see the country from which their own families come until they are in their teens, some not until they are adults The biggest reason for the limited passenger traffic between the Netherlands, where almost half of ethnic Surinamese people live, and the land of their origin is the price of the airfare. This is absurdly high. Flying to Surinam's capital city, Paramaribo, costs in some cases three to four times as much as flying a comparable distance elsewhere.

7 August 2008

Bad management and squabbling lobbyists

More than 15.000 lobbyists are active in Brussels, lobbying the EU institutions for corporations or for interest groups. More and more you come across lobbyists in Brussels, also, from national institutions, and from regions and cities. The Dutch national parliament has a permanent lobby in Brussels. Every one of the Netherlands' Provinces – the country's administrative regions – employs lobbyists there, as do cities such as Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague and Utrecht. Also Arnhem and Nijmegen. And the towns of Twente, of South Limburg. Of Brabant.

5 August 2008

SP urges stern response to waste swindle

“This scandalous waste swindle must be ended," says SP Member of Parliament Remi Poppe. "A bunch of profiteers is making extortionate gains at the cost of the environment and of the world's poorest people." This was Poppe's reaction to the publication on Tuesday of new information concerning the dumping of Dutch waste in developing countries. "We need to come down hard on these people," added Poppe.

International