Nieuws van de afdeling

11 April 2008

Parliament too fond of travel

This week the Parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs met to discuss a problem that it had encountered. The Committee has been invited to visit by the 'parliament' of Saudi Arabia, but has no money left to cover the costs. Its budget of €68,000 is supposed to cover two trips a year, but we've already spent the lot for 2008 on going to Indonesia. What can be done?

10 April 2008

Take cyclists seriously, says SP Euro-MP

In its newly-issued discussion document on urban mobility, the European Commission has given almost no attention to cyclists and their needs. For SP Euro-MP Erik Meijer, coordinator on the European Parliament's Transport Committee for the United European Left parliamentary group, this simply isn't good enough. Describing the omission as a "considerable oversight", Meijer explains that, together with other sympathetic MEPs, he will be trying "to fill this gap with our own proposal, expressing the views of the EU Cyclist Group." The EU Cyclist Group brings together MEPs with employees of the EU institutions to campaign for improved facilities for cyclists. Meijer first presented his proposal earlier this week at a lively meeting and reception held to welcome the Group's 1000th member.

9 April 2008

Government supports SP proposal on World Bank

The coalition cabinet of centre-right Christian parties and centre-left social democrats today promised its support for a proposal from the SP that pressure should be put on the World Bank to cease its practice of putting economic conditions on countries seeking financial support. The World Bank, which extends loans to countries for infrastructure projects, has for decades imposed such conditions, obliging privatisation, liberalisation, and a reduction in state spending, including on such vital matters as health care and education.

8 April 2008

Harry van Bommel looks back at campaign against European Constitution

Interview with Harry van Bommel by Ece Atikcan, Ph.D. Candidate at the McGill University,

5 April 2008

Vote No! SP's Harry Van Bommel speaks in Ireland

SP Member of Parliament Harry van Bommel spent the weekend of 4th-6th April in Ireland, where he travelled to lend his support to the campaign for a 'No' vote in the forthcoming referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. Ireland's referendum, which will now almost certainly be the only one held on the treaty in the whole of the European Union, will take place in the second week of June.

4 April 2008

New European Attack on Collective Labour Agreements

With a decision of the European Court of Justice in what has come to be known as the Ruffert case, a new attack has been launched on the validity of the Netherlands' Collective Labour Agreements (CAOs) and similar sectoral agreements in other EU member states. The minimum wage stipulated in one such agreement in Germany need not, according to the Court, be applied by foreign forms active in the Federal Republic. The decision opens the door to social dumping, the term given to the favouring of countries which impose no or low demands on employers in relation to workers' pay and conditions. Following previous ECJ rulings in the comparable Laval and Viking, this decision appears once again to bear out the warnings issued by campaigners against the EU's Services Directive - sometimes known as the Bolkestein Directive, after the right-wing Dutch European Commissioner who spawned it. "Social Europe" is being razed to the ground.

International