International

The European Commission was supposed to publish its proposals for further liberalisation of health care at the end of last year, but no trace of this has yet been seen. "They're afraid of the reactions and of the consequences as long as the new reform treaty remains to be ratified by all member states," says SP Euro-MP Kartika Liotard. A member of the European Parliament's Public Health Committee, Liotard, who is in Strasbourg for the parliamentary plenary, is calling on the Commission to show greater openness.

SP Member of Parliament and spokesman on European affairs Harry van Bommel is demanding that the Europa Fund distributed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs be discontinued. The ministry is misusing money from the funds for what is disguised propaganda for the European Union, Van Bommel says. He was reacting to a report in the leading daily newspaper NRC Handelsblad that Dutch state television broadcast two programmes last summer on the benefits of the EU, without any mention having been made of the fact that they were made possible by subsidies from the ministry.