International

SP Euro-MP Anne-Marie Mineur describes herself as pleased by the outcome of her fact-finding mission to Sri Lanka. Under pressure resulting from her visit, Labour Minister John Seneviratne has stated that he will ensure that 50% of the financial gains from additional trade with the European Union will go directly to the island nation’s workers and that he is prepared to make this an enforceable target. He has received support in this from the employers’ organisation Board of Investors (BOI).

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SP Member of Parliament Renske Leijten wants it made compulsory for multinational corporations (MNCs) to declare how much tax they pay and where they pay it. A range of studies and reports have demonstrated that MNCs use a variety of structures to ensure that they pay as little tax as possible. Developing countries are among those who are losing many billions every year in tax receipts as a result.

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SP Member of Parliament Sadet Karabulut is deeply concerned about the American attack on Syria. ‘The civil war in Syria has been raging for six years and has brought nothing but misery,’ she says. ‘Hundreds of thousands have died and at least five million have fled to neighbouring countries. The chemical attack in Syria was a cowardly, completely unacceptable deed and a serious breach of international law. Those responsible must be identified and brought to justice.’

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The European Parliament voted today on the proposal for new legislation aimed at improving type approval in cars. The proposals were prompted by the Dieselgate scandal. SP-Euro-MP Dennis de Jong is far from pleased with the outcome, as he explains: “Dieselgate showed that we need better monitoring. The shady software in diesel-powered cars could and should have been exposed a great deal sooner. However, I’m opposed to the idea that we now need European inspectors in order to improve on national supervision. Instead, member states should be monitoring each other. European inspectors belong in a federal state and so we don’t need them.”

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At the international terrorism conference in St Petersburg this week, which SP Senator Tiny Kox attended in his capacity as president of the United Left Group of members of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), he warned those present not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. "In far too many countries," Kox argued, "antiterrorism legislation comes at the cost of human rights, the constitutional state, and democratic institutions. That goes for a great many former Soviet Republics but also for a country such as France, where the state of emergency has been repeatedly renewed, in contravention of a PACE resolution proposed by myself and approved by the assembly a year ago." 

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Saudi Arabia's military intervention against Yemen began precisely two years ago last Saturday. The consequences have been disastrous: some ten thousand dead, millions of refugees and a shortage of almost everything else. Mass hunger threatens.Read more

Early this month European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker presented five scenarios for the future of the EU. Supposedly, on Saturday 25 March he would begin an open discussion with member state government leaders, but in reality Juncker placed tight restrictions on this. Each of the scenarios recommended by him would lead to an increase in power for Brussels, and the only one which would limit Brussels’ power, Juncker disqualified.

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This morning the Luxemburgplein in front of the European Parliament was packed with demonstrators, people who feel the effects of social dumping in Europe every day. They were protesting against unfair competition between workers from different EU member states. Not only in the Netherlands, but also in Belgium and other west European countries, east European workers suffer exploitation. This is leading in turn to oppressive conditions in the labour market and represents a direct threat to the livelihoods of west European workers.

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On Thursday, SP Member of Parliament Sadet Karabulut called on her fellow MPs and the government to speak out unambiguously against the arrest and prosecution of elected parliamentarians in Turkey. “The country is rapidly strangling the life out of the remnants of the democratic rule of law,” she told colleagues.  “Keeping elected representatives of the people behind bars is only one example of this. For me it’s important that the new parliament, installed today here in The Hague, speaks out forcefully against this. Fortunately it turned out during the debate that there is broad support for this position.”

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