International

In the light of President Erdogan’s continuing assault on the democratic norms by which, as a member state of the Council of Europe, Turkey has agreed to abide, political group leaders in the body’s parliamentary assembly have refused an invitation to attend talks on the situation with the Turkish authorities. United Left Group leader and SP Senator Tiny Kox is in complete agreement with this unanimous decision.

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Today the SP stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the dockers who serve the Hemweg power station in Amsterdam. The dockers and their union, the FNV, are demanding that attention be paid to their plight and that of many other Dutch workers and their families who depend on the coal-fired power station for their livelihoods. “Closure of the coal-fired power stations is a necessary step in the fight against climate change, but that’s no reason to leave the thousands of workers dependent on them to their fate,” argue SP Member of Parliament Sandra Beckerman and her colleague Cem Lacin.

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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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