Nieuws van de afdeling

10 March 2005

Transport Sector under pressure from Services Directive

The EU Services Directive authored by former Commissioner Frits Bolkestein, which aims to liberalise all service industries, makes an exception of the transport sector. In Article 2 it states that transport services stand outside the scope of the measure. This is all well and good, but unfortunately there’s a sting in the tail, and it is one which means that the Bolkestein Directive would, despite Article 2, offer the enterprising an opportunity to put transport under the hammer.

25 February 2005

Van Bommel calls for attention to shortage of condoms in developing countries

SP member of Parliament Harry van Bommel has asked the Minister for Development Co-operation to give special attention to the serious shortage of condoms in developing countries, a shortage connected to the ending of US government aid to organsations which give advice on birth control and abortion. Mr Van Bommel wants to know whether the minister supports moves by Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer (finance minister) Gordon Brown to give the issue prominence on the agenda of the UN summit on the Millennium Goals scheduled for this September.

22 February 2005

Hypocrisy triumphant at the Brussels NATO Show

Everything inside NATO is hunky dory, or so US President George W. Bush would have us believe. Bush was in Brussels today meeting government leaders from other NATO member states and was full of enthusiasm about future co-operation within an alliance which has recently been so divided. As expected, Prime Minister Balkenende declared his immediate support for Bush’s statement, concluding that it meant that an end had been put to the bad atmosphere within NATO since the controversial US-British invasion of Iraq.

22 February 2005

EU Commissioner McCreevy: Services Directive must not damage health care

In a hearing led by SP Euro-MP Kartika Liotard and other Members of the European Parliament, European Commissioner Charlie McCreevy admitted that health care is a matter of such exceptional importance that everything possible must be done to ensure that the Services Directive proposed by his predecessor Frits Bolkestein does not undermine it. The hearing took place at the European Parliament in Strasbourg this afternoon in the presence of some forty Members and parliamentary staff.

17 February 2005

Successful demonstration against software patents

Around 300 people from many different European countries demonstrated in Brussels today against the proposed EU directive which would authorise patents on software. A colourful procession of researchers, technicians and (SP) politicians made its way past the various buildings housing the EU’s institutions.

16 February 2005

SP: ‘Major concerns over Kyoto’

The SP European Parliamentary Group has expressed its grave concern regarding the progress of ’Kyoto’, the treaty designed to turn back global warming. SP Euro-MP Erik Meijer has put a number of written questions to the European Commission concerning the treaty’s alarming failure to produce any tangible results, while Mr Meijer’s SP colleague Kartika Liotard was taking part in a meeting of the International Panel on Climate Change on Réunion.

International