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30 November 2016

Harry van Bommel: EU must work towards alternative forms of cooperation

The European project is under threat of collapse, and from every side. Instead of further enlargement, the EU should be working on alternative forms of cooperation, argues Harry van Bommel.

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30 November 2016

Smaling: ‘Stop exploitation at Ryanair’

The SP is urging Sharon Dijksma, Secretary of State for Infrastructure and the Environment, to intervene directly at Ryanair. The low-cost airline scandalously exploits its pilots and cabin personnel. According to SP Member of Parliament Eric Smaling, “a price war is being fought on the backs of the cabin staff. People are getting up to their ears in debt and in some cases working themselves until they are literally ill. We should not be cooperating in this.”

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23 November 2016

Juncker’s “shoddy” approach to lobbying by ex-European Commissioners

Recent weeks have seen a flood of media coverage of scandals, with former European Commissioners in the leading roles. In order to prevent a repeat of such scandals, Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker has adopted a number of new measures. SP Euro-MP Dennis de Jong isn’t satisfied by Juncker’s actions, however.

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23 November 2016

European Parliament refuses to check CETA for clashes with EU law

The European Parliament is not doing its job, and is thus risking undermining the rule of law in Europe. This was the SP’s response to the Parliament’s refusal to subject the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) with Canada to tests of its compatibility with European law. The arbitration system established by the treaty is particularly controversial.

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23 November 2016

Van Nispen: No to a European Public Prosecutor

The Netherlands must say no to a European Public Prosector’s Office, SP Member of Parliament Michiel van Nispen demanded during Wednesday’s parliamentary debate. “The European Union is once again demonstrating that it is insatiably hungry for new powers,” said Van Nispen. “A European PPO isn’t needed and certainly isn’t to be desired, because the member states themselves control their own criminal law and decide how to deploy the capacities of their police and prosecution services. Which criminal acts we prosecute and which we don’t, where our priorities lie, these are things that the Netherlands decides for itself and that’s how it should stay.”

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22 November 2016

Senator Van Apeldoorn: 'budget deficit narrowed, social deficit widened’

Today the Senate debated the government’s financial and economic record with Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem. SP Senator Bastiaan van Apeldoorn underlined during the debate that the one-sided focus of Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s second period of government on spending cuts and austerity has created a great deal of unnecessary damage to the economy and to society. With elections scheduled for next March, much of Van Apeldoorn’s speech focused on domestic issues, but the Senator placed these in the context of European Union austerity policies.

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17 November 2016

Stop EU subsidies to European political parties

It was announced today that one of the European political parties, the Alliance for Direct Democracy in Europe (ADDE), which includes UKIP, has been guilty of misuse of EU subsidies. “It’s well-known that subsidies to European political parties and foundations, which are distrusted annually by the European Parliament, cannot be used by national parties,” SP Euro-MP Dennis de Jong explains. ”ADDE is at fault to the tune of no less than €173,000. As rapporteur for the EP budgetary accounts it’s struck me how hazy things are when it comes to the budget for subsidies. The only solution to the problem as far as I can see is for the EP simply to stop the subsidies and for European political parties and foundations to be financed instead from contributions from their members, the national political parties. Otherwise we’ll keep having this kind of mess.”

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15 November 2016

Abolish the European Commission

Our draft manifesto for the parliamentary elections next March contains a chapter on European cooperation. This is a logical inclusion, because European and national policy are absolutely interconnected. The manifesto is critical, as was the manifesto for the European elections in 2014. That too is logical, because the EU hasn’t improved at all since then: still more neoliberal policy and a European Commission which calls itself ‘the most political ever.’

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10 November 2016

Emile Roemer: The lesson from the US

Donald Trump has been elected President of the United States. Following Brexit, this is the second time that the people of a western democracy have dealt a solid blow to the political elite, an elite which has no idea what goes on in the everyday lives of ordinary people and which shares out the plum jobs amongst its members.

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