International

The SP is pleased that member states’ national parliaments will after all be able to participate in the decision about the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between the EU and Canada. European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker has agreed, under massive public pressure, to proceed on the basis of a ‘mixed treaty’ or ‘shared competence’, which means that the agreement of all twenty-eight of the member states’ national parliaments is required before the treaty is approved.

250 MPs from thirteen different member states have signed a statement demanding that national parliaments be given the right to debate the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between the European Union and Canada. Their demand for involvement was presented in a letter to the government of Slovakia in its capacity as holder of the EU’s rotating presidency. The statement was an initiative of SP Senator Tuur Elzinga. “CETA will have far-reaching consequences for these various countries,” Elzinga explains. “So it’s not a treaty which can be introduced behind people’s backs. National parliaments must have the chance to approve or reject the agreement. That’s democracy.”

This morning the EU member states’ permanent representatives – Coreper, the body of civil servants which gives administrative support to the Council of Ministers – approved the compromise on the directive on legal aid which the Dutch EU Presidency had reached with the European Parliament rapporteur, SP Euro-MP De Jong. “I’m grateful to the Dutch Presidency and in particular Security and Justice Minister Ard van der Steur for the enormous effort they have put into this difficult dossier. The result isn’t perfect, but we have in any case a basis for legal aid in criminal proceedings in every EU member state. Access to this right must be guaranteed to all. We don’t want to see class justice.”

he SP sees the announcement by European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker that national parliaments may play no role in the debate on CETA, the trade treaty with Canada, as a “coup d’état”. Not only is Juncker in this way bypassing the democratic process in the member states, he is also showing his unwillingness to wait for the official advice of the European Court of Justice.

The SP today welcomed the adoption of a motion calling on the government to introduce a social minimum income in the Dutch Caribbean islands of Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba, fixed at a level sufficient to cover the cost of basic necessities.

Brexit presents an outstanding opportunity for fundamental change in Europe, to get rid of competition between countries and build a slimmed down EU. A New Union, a union of cooperation between countries, instead of a union with diktats from Brussels. So said SP leader Emile Roemer during Monday evening’s debate on the Brexit.

The SP is the only party which can close the enormous gap which has opened across society, said Emile Roemer, following his re-election by the Party Council to head the list for next year’s general election. “There is a yawning gap between the small group which does very well for itself and the rest of the population,” Roemer told the Party Council, which is made up of every branch chair and a few ex-officio members, and is the SP’s supreme decision-making body between National Congresses. “If the SP gets into power, then the Netherlands by 2020 will look completely different. With more democracy, more power for ordinary people. Because as things stand people have no longer any say over their work, their school or their neighbourhood, so we will make sure that they regain a voice.”

The result of the referendum in the United Kingdom demonstrates that the EU cannot continue on the same path, according to SP European affairs spokesman Harry van Bommel, who called the British decision to leave an ‘irreversible change for the European Union’. The most important lesson to be drawn from this referendum is in Van Bommel’s opinion the fact that, under pressure, negotiation space will open for fundamental transformation of the EU. “The Netherlands should take its example from this and put our demands for such a change on the negotiating table,” he says.

The Brexit referendum serves to remind us that multinationals and neoliberal ideas have acquired too great an influence on the European Union, write Harry van Bommel and Dennis de Jong. They want to see drastic transformation.