International

Under pressure from a majority of Members of Parliament, Agriculture Minister Gerda Verburg has withdrawn recently announced measures to counter the horrifying abuses to which farm animals are subjected during transport. The minister had reportedly lost all trust in the sector following revelations of a whole series of abuses, but this evening she opted to withdraw her proposals, leaving the sector itself responsible for monitoring animal welfare. This is despite the fact that those responsible for the transport of farm animals have already demonstrated that they are unwilling to take the structural steps necessary if the problem is to be tackled effectively.

SP Member of Parliament Remi Poppe is less than impressed by this year's report from the Netherlands' official Environment and Nature Planning Bureau and is determined that next year will see a more honest 'Milieubalans'. Literally the 'environmental balance sheet', the 'Milieubalans' is in practice a report on the state of affairs as regards environmental problems in the Netherlands – and this, Poppe argues, is precisely the problem, that the report, presented on Tuesday, confined its observations to the domestic scene. "The Bureau was only concerned with the improvement of the environment in our own country," said Poppe. "But its solutions aren't solutions at all. They don't solve the problem, they merely move it elsewhere."