International

People are annoyed that their energy bills are rising and that they are being chased up to pay the costs of the range of climate change measures which have to be taken. For this reason the SP has proposed an alternative, fairer source of the necessary finance: the major corporations, responsible for 80% of pollution, should pay more tax. Many have spoken about this, but the SP has put forward a concrete proposal, one which we have subjected to analysis by the independent environmental service CE Delft. What does this show? Even a minimal tax on the polluters would mean that 70% of the Dutch population, people on low or middle incomes, would gain.

At the beginning of December the United States gave Russia sixty days, of which only five now remain, to come into line with the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty. Should this not happen, the US will withdraw from the treaty, and this could lead to a new nuclear arms race in Europe and further escalation of the new Cold War. This must at all costs be prevented. Nothing less that Europe's security and, in the worst case scenario, the continued existence of humanity, are at stake.

This year we celebrate the fact that one hundred years ago the Dutch government introduced universal suffrage, giving all citizens officially an equal political voice. In comparison, a hundred years before that only a handful of rich men elected the parliament and the vast majority of the population had no say over the running of the country. “We want the vote – or revolution” was the slogan of the movement for a broader franchise.

For fully two-and-a-half years a cloud of uncertainty has hung over the approaching Brexit. A hopelessly divided Conservative Party and the inability of the government and opposition to work together have led to over two years of chaotic and extremely contradictory messages regarding Brexit.

Minister of Foreign Affairs Stef Blok is in deep trouble as a result of the leaking of state secrets concerning supplies to controversial militias in Syria. The blunder has demonstrated how fatal it can be if crucial information is marked 'secret' in a one-sided process. A committee chaired by SP Member of Parliament Ronald van Raak will give his parliamentary colleagues more of a say over what is and is not a state secret.

Last week saw the presentation of the Climate Accord. The SP isn't happy with the result. We want to leave a clean earth to our children, but that can only be achieved if the major polluters are tackled. This government instead repeatedly takes the side of the multinationals rather than the people. It's unacceptable that energy bills continue to rise while big polluters such as Shell are protected. We want to see lower energy bills and we want to see major corporations paying their fair share.

Climate accord, climate law, climate deniers, rising energy bills. Who can make sense of it all? And why does the SP emphasise the importance of climate justice? Below, we outline our position.

SP Senator Tiny Kox, a frequent visitor to Strasbourg, reacts to the gunning down of innocent citizens in the city.

I have just expressed my condolences to the families of the people of Strasbourg who were killed or wounded in last night's terrorist attack. As a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, I have paid many visits to the city in which the Assembly has its main seat and where it holds its plenary meetings. This week I am in another French city in which the Council of Europe frequently meets, Paris, but the whole country has of course been plunged into shock by the latest horror.

Tiny Kox, a member of the Dutch Senate and chair of the United Left Group in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), was present in Paris on 10th December for a meeting of the Assembly's Committee on Rules of Procedure. The meeting took the decision to end the suspension of Russia's voting rights in the Council of Europe, a suspension instituted in response to the country's illegal annexation of the Crimea from Ukraine in 2014. Beyond that, the Committee ruled that in future no country's members of the Parliamentary Assembly may be deprived of their right to vote. In response to the suspension, Russia's parliamentarians decided to terminate their participation in PACE until their full rights were restored. They will now be entitled to return to play a full role in the body's deliberations and decision-making.