International

In the national daily NRC on May 4th, councillors from Rotterdam’s ruling coalition sounded the alarm about the obligation to put local health care out to tender across the European Union. Their most important objection to the public procurement law is that private care-providers from other countries will lack local knowledge, and that the duty to tender across Europe is creating an enormous bureaucratic burden. Experienced people want to see the back of compulsory tendering. At the same time, however, the EU continues to work steadily towards a treaty on services that will only make the problems worse.

The European Commission should not have refused to accept the Citizens’ Initiative against the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, which on its final presentation had been signed by 3,284,289 people. This is the judgment of the European Court of Justice (ECJ). The SP welcomes the ruling, which points the way to an important role for Citizens’ Initiatives in strengthening democracy in the European Union.