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26 March 2019

National parliaments to move to adopt effective rules for authors' rights

The European Parliament today adopted the now notorious directive on authors' rights. The SP abstained in the vote. SP Euro-MP Dennis de Jong explains: “It remained a difficult decision right to the end. As I wrote recently, it's important to us that artists receive a fair reward for their creativity. But we don't want to see disproportionate filters when you upload something. Unfortunately we weren't successful in having the directive completely clarified on this point. The intention was good, to make the tech giants pay artists for their products. The SP will continue to work for this in the Dutch Parliament. But this directive was still so unclear that we felt we had to abstain.”

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26 March 2019

How do you manipulate public opinion?

Precisely twenty-six days after the attacks of 11th September 2001, the American and British air forces began their bombardment of Afghan targets. The 'war on terror' had begun. The SP was the sole party in the Dutch Parliament to condemn both the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on the one hand, and the bombing of Afghanistan on the other. In the Dutch media too there was virtually unanimous support for the bombardments. Where did this consensus have its roots?

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22 March 2019

Put an end to the blockade of Gaza. Stop the occupation of Gaza

At the end of last month, a UN Human Rights Council committee of enquiry published a hard-hitting report on Israel's seriously disproportional violence carried out last year against Palestinian demonstrators on the border with Gaza. Almost two hundred Palestinians have been killed by Israel and thousands wounded.

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20 March 2019

Strong peace movement is urgently needed

Two major concerns characterise the current political era, a period that began at the start of the 1990s with the fall of the Soviet Union. The permanent war, for the most part waged in Asia and Africa; and the abiding need to put an end to nuclear arms. Now that the INF treaty has been abrogated, the struggle against nuclear weapons must be taken up again, and powerfully.

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15 March 2019

Permanent war cries out for end

Since 2001 the Netherlands has supported every war of intervention in the Middle East and beyond. These wars have been waged under the leadership of the United States in order, in their own words, to defeat world-wide terrorism. It began in Afghanistan, where even after some seventeen years of fighting no end to the conflict is in sight.

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14 March 2019

Stop the race to the bottom, fight the exploitation of workers

Many products on sale in the Netherlands are made elsewhere in the world, often under atrocious working conditions and for a much lower wage than they would be paid here. In the last fifty years a large slice of Dutch industry has decamped to low wage countries. The result? Competition between Dutch workers and workers abroad, the consequence of which is a race to the bottom. According to free market politicians and the multinationals, wages in the Netherlands must also be lowered if we want to compete with foreign countries. The ordinary Dutch or foreign worker gains no benefit from this, but big corporations have the last laugh as they see their profits explode.

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14 March 2019

No Go Ahead for TTIP-Light

SP Euro-MP Anne-Marie Mineur says that she is delighted by the European Parliament's refusal to give the green light for renewed trade and investment negotiations with the United States.

“The trade agreements that were on the table today had, it's true, less weight than the rejected Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, the TTIP, but they are along the same lines,” says Mineur. “The Commission wants to negotiate with the US on the abolition of tariffs on virtually all industrial goods. Critical NGOs describe the proposals as 'TTIP light'. That President Trump has announced his intention to withdraw from the Paris Agreement on climate change was clearly noted.”

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13 March 2019

At last a European approach to fraudulent invoices

Foto: CC0

In 2013 the European Parliament adopted by an overwhelming majority a report by SP Euro-MP Dennis de Jong, in which he called for a European approach to fraudulent invoices. Today his recommendations were finally embodied in legislation. Explaining the new law, De Jong said: “In the Netherlands the Fraud Help Desk works well. It's mostly small businesses that become the victims of false invoices and similar kinds of fraud. If, however, the invoices are sent from outside the country, it's very difficult for the Fraud Help Desk. That's why the organisation for small and medium-sized enterprises, MKB-NL has long been urging the creation of a network of help desks throughout the EU. The directive voted on today will mean that such a network is at last in prospect.”

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11 March 2019

We must rid ourselves of nuclear weapons

Two developments  which have emerged during the last few days –  the prematurely ended summit between US and North Korean top men Trump and Kim, and the heightening tensions between India and Pakistan – are making it all the clearer why it is of the utmost importance that the international community, including the Netherlands, take serious steps towards a world without nuclear weapons.

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