Nieuws van de afdeling

19 October 2007

EU Treaty Agreement means it's time to choose: will the European project proceed with the people, or without them?

“Now that there is a definitive text for the new EU Treaty, the question becomes one of whether we try to further the European project with the people, or whether we proceed without them," says SP European affairs spokesman Harry van Bommel. “A clear majority of Europeans want referendums to be held," he added. "If this doesn't happen, the EU will distance itself still further from the people it claims to serve. It will remain a project of politicians and bureaucrats and Euroscepticism will become ever more widespread."

9 October 2007

Afghanistan: NATO fights, Karzai talks

It will not be NATO but the President of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, who will decide whether, when and where talks will be held with the Taliban over how to bring an end to six years of war in the country, said NATO Secretary General Jaap De Hoop Scheffer at today's meeting of the alliance's parliamentary assembly in Reykjavik. The assembly, in which SP Senate leader Tiny Kox and foreign affairs spokesman Harry van Bommel participate as part of the Netherlands' delegation, was debating the situation in Afghanistan, and the future of NATO.

4 October 2007

Questioned by SP Senator, President Gül acknowledges past ill-treatment of Kurds

In answer to questions from SP Senator Tiny Kox, Turkish President Abdullah Gül, following his speech to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), acknowledged that his country had in the past denied political and cultural rights to its Kurdish population. He promised improvements and said that he was proud of the present government's reform policies. Kurds now enjoy the right, via Kurdish-language newspapers and broadcasters, freely to express their views, the President said in his first address to an international body since his election.

2 October 2007

Council of Europe turns down debate on planned rocket shield

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) is for the time being refusing to make a pronouncement regarding the political consequences of the projected installation of an American rocket shield in Poland and the Czech Republic. A request for an emergency debate from SP Senator Tiny Kox was denied, despite promises of support from the chair of every political group represented in the Assembly. Senator Kox, himself chair of the United European Left group (GUE), described the refusal as 'ridiculous', adding that 'If this subject isn't urgent, or if it doesn't belong to the core of the Council of Europe's business, then what on earth does?'

2 October 2007

Parliament supports SP motion calling for embargo on Burma as demonstrators picket Total station

A majority in Parliament's main legislative chamber has given its support to a motion from the SP and the Labour Party (PvdA) calling for economic sanctions against the Burmese military regime. The motion calls on the Dutch government to take the initiative at the European level in favour of putting the regime under pressure through economic sanctions.

29 September 2007

Government evades responsibility to take its own decision on a referendum

The government is acting as if the Council of State has issued an instruction rather than offering advice. But it is for politicians to determine what it is that they want.

International