International

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.”

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.

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.”

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.’

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.

Never before has a demonstration in Brussels had such a rapid effect. On the same day that 20,000 steelworkers from across Europe took to the streets of Brussels to protest against the dumping of Chinese steel on the European market, the European Commission proposed fresh measures to counteract it. In addition, thanks to a motion proposed in the national Parliament in The Hague by Socialist Party MP Sharon Gesthuizen, the Netherlands will be obliged on this occasion to cooperate in bringing about the proposed measures.

SP Member of Parliament Harry van Bommel has reacted angrily to the arrest of a number of prominent pro-Kurdish politicians in Turkey. “More than ten democratically elected representatives have been dragged from their beds,” says Van Bommel. “This is the umpteenth illustration of the fact that Turkey has thrown the principles of the democratic rule of law overboard. The country’s accession talks on EU membership must be suspended with immediate effect and arms exports immediately restricted.”

Each year after the government has presented its programme for the coming period, which in this case will end in March with the general election, parties in both houses of the Netherlands’ Parliament present and debate their response. Today was the turn of the upper house, with SP Senate leader Tiny Kox launching a blistering attack on the government’s record.

The European Commission’s Ethics Committee today published its advice regarding the appointment of former Commission president Jose Barroso to investment bank Goldman Sachs.