The Netherlands: Dutch government quits over 'colossal stain' of tax subsidy scandal - by Stephanie van den Berg

Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s government resigned on Friday, accepting responsibility for wrongful accusations of fraud by the tax authorities that drove thousands of families to financial ruin, often on the basis of ethnicity.

Read more at: Dutch government quits over 'colossal stain' of tax subsidy scandal | Reuters

The Netherlands: UN human rights committee criticises the Netherlands over child with 'nationality unknown'

The UN’s human rights committee says the Netherlands has violated a child’s rights by registering ‘nationality unknown’ in official records because this means he could not be registered as ‘stateless’ under Dutch law and therefore be given international protection as a stateless child.

‘States have the responsibility to ensure that stateless children under their jurisdiction who have no possibility to acquire any other nationality are not left without legal protection,’ said committee member Shuichi Furuya in a statement. ‘The right to nationality ensures concrete protection for individuals, in particular children.

The committee has now asked the Netherlands to review its decisions on Denny’s application to be registered as stateless, and on his application to be recognised as a Dutch citizen, as well as overhauling the relevant legislation. According to national Dutch statistics agency CBS, in September 2016 there were 13,169 children in the Netherlands under the age of 10 registered with ‘unknown nationality’, many of whom had been born in the Netherlands, the UN said.

Read more at: UN human rights committee criticises the Netherlands over child with 'nationality unknown' - DutchNews.nl

European Aircraft Industry ; Netherlands agrees to contribute 3.4 billion euros to Air France-KLM bailout

The Dutch government has reached a deal with France to contribute 3.4 billion euros ($3.8 billion) to an Air France-KLM (AIRF.PA) bailout that had strained relations between the airline group’s state shareholders, sources told Reuters.

Read more at:
Netherlands agrees to contribute 3.4 billion euros to Air France-KLM bailout - Reuters

EU -The Netherlands: Dutch Exceptionalism: Will Holland's Looser Corona Policies Pay Off?

Off?

One EU country after the other is moving to restrict public life. The Dutch government has opted for less drastic measures, hoping for herd immunity and relying on the common sense of its people. But the country has still had to make adjustments to its policies.

The Big Bazar in Winterswijk is, as usual, full of "Big Deals!" despite the coronavirus. Plastic footballs, clothespins for hanging laundry, flower pots and various other things are for sale at the store in the Dutch border town. There’s a stand with jackets in front of the clothing shop next door and the drug store Kruidvat across the street has a special offer on creme. People seem relaxed as they stroll through the pedestrian zone and there's not a face mask to be seen. If you visited Winterswijk last Saturday, you could have been forgiven for thinking that the pandemic doesn’t even exist here. But just 10 kilometers away, in the town of Vreden on the German side of the border, almost all the stores have been closed for several days.

Opposition politicians in the Netherlands have been highly critical of the strategy. "Many Dutch people feel like they are being made part of a big experiment,” Lodwijk Asscher, the head of the country’s center-left Social Democratic Party has said. Right-wing radical politician Geert Wilders has said: "Rutte is playing Russian roulette with our people. Many people will get sick as a result. People will die.” Scientists believe that 60 to 70 percent of the population would have to come into contact with the virus to achieve herd immunity, the equivalent of more than 10 million Dutch people. Even with a low mortality among the young and the fittest, this would mean thousands of deaths. And the health system would soon be at its limits.

Read more: Dutch Exceptionalism: Will Holland's Looser Corona Policies Pay Off? - DER SPIEGEL

The Netherlands: Foreign Minister Blok to review travel advice to US in wake of Trump's ban

The Dutch government is to review its travel advice to the US after president Donald Trump imposed a 30-day travel ban on all 26 countries in the Schengen zone, including the Netherlands.

The ban will take effect from 5am on Saturday and apply to all non-US citizens. Some tour operators, including TUI, cancelled trips immediately because of concerns that their customers would not be able to return home. Foreign affairs minister Stef Blok, who is in Indonesia with the king and queen on a state visit, said the ban on travel from Europe was ‘potentially very disruptive’. 

‘We have a lot of traffic in terms of people and trade,’ he said. ‘We are now assessing whether we need to adjust our travel advice to the United States’.

Read more: Foreign Minister Blok to review travel advice to US in wake of Trump's ban - DutchNews.nl

European Airline Industry: Dutch surprise France by taking airline stake

Air-France KLM: Dutch surprise France by taking airline stake

Read more at :
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-47386140

The Netherlands: Dutch foreign minister admits lying about meeting with Putin (AP)

In a potentially damaging admission on the eve of his first visit to Russia as a member of the Dutch government, Foreign Minister Halbe Zijlstra on Monday acknowledged lying about attending a meeting with President Vladimir Putin in 2006.

Zijlstra issued a statement confirming the admission he made in an interview published in Monday’s edition of respected Dutch daily De Volkskrant.

Zijlstra has in the past said he was present as an employee of energy giant Shell at Putin’s country retreat when the Russian president said he considered Belarus, Ukraine and the Baltic states as part of a “Greater Russia.”

In a written statement, Zijlstra said that he was not present at the meeting in 2006 but heard the story from somebody who was there. He said he considered Putin’s statements so geopolitically important that he spoke about them publicly and took credit for hearing the comments as a way of protecting his source.

“The manner in which I wanted to protect my source and underscore my message about Russia was not sensible, that is crystal clear,” Zijlstra said.

Zijlstra is due to fly to Moscow Tuesday for a meeting Wednesday with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov.

Read nmore: Dutch foreign minister admits lying about meeting with Putin - The Washington Post

Netherlands population getting more diverse; To hit 18 million by 2031 - by Janene Pieters

The Dutch population will continue to grow in the coming decades to over 18.4 million people by 2060, according to the latest prognosis by Statistics Netherlands. The 18 millionth inhabitant is expected in 2031. By 2040 almost a quarter of the Dutch population will be elderly, and by 2060 just over a third will have their roots in the outside world, according to the stats office.

The population of the Netherlands is growing because more people move to the Netherlands than move away, and because of the increasing lifespan. "In the coming years, more children will also be born, but that will not be sufficient in the long run to compensate for the increasing number of deaths", Statistics Netherlands writes. According to the current forecast, from the end of the 2030s more residents will die each year than are born.

Over the past two decades, the Dutch population grew by 1.5 million people. 86 percent of this increase involve people with a migration background. People immigrating to the Netherlands for work or study increased sharply over the past en years. And more recently, the Netherlands also saw a mass increase in asylum migrants. Though immigration from tradition countries of origin like Morocco, Turkey and Suriname decreased.

In the coming decades, the number of Netherlands residents with a migration background will increase, while the residents with a Dutch background will decrease, Statistics Netherlands expects.

This year 23 percent of the population have a migration background, by 2060 this will increase to 34 percent. "Both now and in the future, more than half of those with a migration background were born in the Netherlands, with at least one parent born abroad."

The number of elderly residents will also increase in the coming decades, due to the high birth rates immediately after the Second World War and in the 1950s and '60s. Another factor is that lifespan increased over the paEU-Digestst years and continues to rise. According to the prognosis, the proportion of the population aged 65 and older will increase from 18 percent in 2017 to 24 percent in 2040.

According to Statistics Netherlands, this prognosis has a level of uncertainty. Migration fluctuates from year to year, which means there is great uncertainty in the prognosis of immigration and emigration on the short term. Birth and mortality rates are easier to predict in the short term, but uncertainty increases in the long term. Taking these uncertainties into account, the Dutch population will be between 17.2 million and 19.7 million people in 2060.

Note  EU -Digest: Bottom line: the Netherlands needs more immigrants, obviously this immigration stream needs to be far better controlled and administered than it is presently done. New citizens should also be required to swear their alliance to the Netherlands/EU during a special Public ceremony in presided over by a Judge, when inducted as citizens of the Netherlands/EU and agree not to serve in any other military force, except that of the Netherlands or the common EU defense force.

Read more: Netherlands population getting more diverse; To hit 18 million by 2031 | NL Times

The Netherlands - Security Services Fail: Bosnian Croat leader Slobodan Praljak dies after drinking poison in UN war crimes court in the Hague

Bosnian Croat ex-General Slobodan Praljak died Wednesday evening after drinking poison at a UN court hearing in The Hague.

"One of the six defendants ... passed away today in the HMC hospital in The Hague," said court spokesman Nenad Golcevski.

Earlier, judges part of the UN International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY)  had rejected the 72-year-old's appeal against his 20-year prison sentence for war crimes and crimes against humanity during the 1992-1995 Bosnian war.

Upon hearing the verdict, Praljak yelled: "Judges, Slobodan Praljak is not a war criminal. I reject the verdict with contempt."

He then drank from a small glass bottle and told the courtroom: "What I drank was poison."

The presiding judge called for medical assistance and ordered the session to be closed to the public.

Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic has described the verdict as "unjust" and offered his condolences to Praljak's family.

Note EU-Digest: the death of Slobodan Pralja by his own hand (drinking a potent poison) inside the International Court of Justice during the hearings, puts a major blemish on the Dutch security services, not only for the fact that this poison was smuggled into the prison where Mr. Slobodan Pralja was incarcerated, but also for allowing the defendant to take this poison into the courtroom. 

It was reported the Dutch Ministry of Justice has launched an immediate investigation into this tragic matter.
  
Read more: Bosnian Croat leader Slobodan Praljak dies after drinking poison in UN war crimes court | News | DW | 29.11.2017

The Netherlands: Syrian ISIS member spotted in Amsterdam - by Janene Pieters

The NL Times reports that a Syrian man who fought for terrorist organization ISIS is living in the Netherlands with false papers, the Volkskrant reports. He was at a meeting in De Balie in Amsterdam in September, where activists of civilian collective "Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently" recognized him.

According to the newspaper, the activists were meeting in De Balie on September 14th following a showing of a film about their work. The 31-year-old ISIS member was there and one of the members immediately recognized him as an ISIS fighter. "We tried to take a picture of him, but he did not want to. He fled outside", Hossam Eesa of the group told the  Dutch newspaper "De Volkskrant". How the man knew about the meeting in De Balie is unclear. It was not listed on De Balie's agenda for safety reasons.

A security guard from De Balie chased after the man, but could not stop him. The police were called, who gathered the activists and their families in a separate room. The police stayed there until the activists could leave the premises safely, according to the newspaper. The activists stay in secret locations in the Netherlands and Germany, because they've been seriously threatened by ISIS for some time.

As far as is known, this is the first time a Syrian ISIS member was signaled in the Netherlands. Sources around the Dutch intelligence and security services confirmed the incident to the Volkskrant, and said hat the AIVD has been watching the man for months.

After years of fighting, ISIS lost almost all of its territory in Syria. Research agency Soufan says that about 30 thousand non-Syrian people joined the terrorist group, including about 280 Dutch. What they will do now is not clear, though it seems plausible that at least some will return to their home countries. About a third of European jihadists already did so, according to the research agency. 

Note EU-Digest: Several Dutch newspaper editors and commentators noted that although Dutch intelligence said they have been watching this ISIS member for months, it seems strange that this man, who has been in the Netherlands now for months illegally, is able to attend a non-publicized anti-ISIS meeting at De Balie in Amsterdam. The other amazing thing is that this ISIS sympathizer, was never arrested, even after the AIVD, as they say, followed him around for several months. This is specially disturbing,  as  the Netherlands terrorism threat level remains high at 4 out of 5. 

EU-Digest

The Netherlands: Experts say: Netherland's frugal ways caused egg scare

Dutch Government getting "egg on their face"

As Europe-wide health scare continues, millions of eggs have been pulled from supermarket shelves across the old continent and dozens of poultry farms have closed since it emerged on Aug. 1 that eggs contaminated with fipronil, which can harm human health, were being exported and sold. Fipronil is widely used to rid household pets such as dogs and cats of fleas, but is banned by the European Union from treating animals destined for human consumption, including chickens.

The World Health Organization says fipronil is "moderately hazardous" in large quantities, with potential danger to people's kidneys, liver and thyroid glands.

Food safety authorities in The Netherlands - where farmers are at the epicenter of the row - this week admitted they received an anonymous tip-off last November about the use of fipronil in chicken pens but refuted allegations of negligence.

"It's mind-blowing that there was no connection made then, between the tip-off and the fact that fipronil may have contaminated both the chickens and the eggs," Dutch investigative journalist and food writer Marcel van Silfhout told AFP.

Had the NVWA, the Dutch food and goods watchdog, acted at that point, the latest trouble to hit the export-dependent Dutch food industry could have largely been avoided, said Van Silfhout, who penned a critical book about food safety and the NVWA in 2014.

Martin van den Berg, a professor and senior toxicologist at Utrecht University's Institute of Risk Assessment Sciences, added: "If there were investigators who were experts in this area and understood the impact of fipronil, maybe there would have been a different reaction."

But after consultations following the tip-off, the NVWA decided "there was no reason to think that fipronil would enter either eggs or chickens," two Dutch ministers said in a letter to parliament on Thursday.

Much of the current problem can be traced back to a growing loss of expertise; the NVWA and its predecessors have faced a series of cutbacks and trims since 2003, experts say.

The heavily burdened agency - which deals with food security but also general safety of goods - saw its permanent staff shrink from 3,700 full-time jobs in 2003 to 2,200 over the next decade, according to the Dutch Christian-based daily Trouw. Though the number is now back up slightly to about 2,600, many employees are not experts in their fields, according to Van Silfhout.

"There is no doubt that the problem started with the cutbacks since 2003," he said.

Since then, a series of food scandals to hit The Netherlands, including the outbreak of Q fever in 2007, which killed dozens of people, firmly laid the blame on the NVWA.

"A culture of soft enforcement took hold ... instead of clear independent inspections," Van Silfhout wrote. Pieter van Vollenhoven, Princess Margriet's husband and a former Dutch Safety Board chairman, agreed.

"At (farming) companies, economic considerations quickly took the lead," he told the Dutch daily Algemeen Dagblad in a recent interview.

"The NVWA must stand up for public interest, for food security. Alas, the agency in reality is not a food watchdog, but an extension of economic policy," Van Vollenhoven said.

Read more Experts say : Netherland's frugal ways caused egg scare - Daily Sabah

The Netherlands - Pesticide Contamination : Dozens more egg producers shut down as pesticide scandal spreads

The Dutch food and product safety board has stopped ‘dozens’ more poultry farms from sending their eggs to market because they may be contaminated with the pesticide fipronil. Tests for traces of the pesticide, used to control lice in poultry, are now being carried out on eggs, hens and chicken manure at several dozen farms, the NVWA said in a statement.

On Monday, the NVWA shut down seven poultry farms after fipronil was found in samples of eggs.

The chemical is primarily used as an insecticide, particularly to kill fleas, and is classed as a ‘moderately hazardous pesticide’ by the World Health Organisation.

In the Netherlands it is banned in the poultry sector. The NVWA, which took the action after a tip-off from the Belgian authorities, said in a statement there is no danger to human health. According to regional paper de Stentor, the contamination may have come from a pest control company in Gelderland which used the pesticide to deal with chicken lice.

The NVWA says it has not so far found concentrations of the chemical which would prove a direct danger to human health. However, continued consumption of eggs containing fipronil ‘could have damaging effect.

The anti-lice pesticide at the centre of an egg safety scandal in the Netherlands may have been used on Dutch farms as early as June 2016, the Volkskrant said on Wednesday.

The company at the centre of the scandal, Barneveld-based Chickfriend, was treating poultry for lice last year and there is no reason to believe that the product did not contain fipronil at that time, the paper said.

The Dutch food and product safety board NVWA told the paper that eggs containing the banned pesticide fipronil could have been sold in Dutch shops since then, but said: ‘we have no way of checking because the eggs have been eaten’.

Chickfriend is now thought to have bought the pesticide from a Belgian supplier and investigators are now trying to find out if the Dutch firm was aware the product, said to be based on natural oils such as eucalyptus, contained fipronil. The pesticide is classed as ‘moderately hazardous pesticide’ by the World Health Organisation.

Note EU-Digest:  Reviewing Chemicals Product Lists of chemical products sold in the EU reveals Fipronil is among one of the many poisonous (to humans) products sold by the US based company Dow Chemicals in the EU. The EU authorities and local European governments need to do a better job at overcoming the intense lobby efforts, of mainly US based companies, to sell harmful products like Fipronil in the EU.

Read more: Dozens more egg producers shut down as pesticide scandal spreads - DutchNews.nl

The Netherlands: Edith Schippers fails and hands over cabinet talks to new chief negotiator

Efforts to form a new Dutch cabinet took a new turn on Monday when Edith Schippers, who has led the talks so far, said she wanted to hand the job over to a new negotiator.

Read more at DutchNews.nl: Edith Schippers hands over cabinet talks to new chief negotiator http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2017/05/edith-schippers-hands-over-cabinet-talks-to-new-chief-negotiator/

Tjeenk Willink

Efforts to form a new Dutch cabinet took a new turn today, Monday, May 29, when Edith Schippers, who has led the talks so far, said she wanted to hand the job over to a new negotiator.

Tjeenk Willink (75) helped negotiate previous cabinets in 1994, 1999 and 2010. 

He is also a friend of the former queen Beatrix and one of her closest advisors. 

In her final report, handed over to parliament today Monday, May29,  Schippers said there were objections to every potential coalition and that this meant she had completed her task. Tjeenk Willink, who has said he is willing to take on the job, must start by asking different combinations of parties to the negotiating table immediately, the former health minister said.

The results of the election have created a complicated situation, Schippers said. ‘The result demands a formation process which will take time. Parties have to take a step towards the others because there are wide differences in policy.’

However, Schippers refused to talk of deadlock. ‘Standpoints have been taken but they could change in the next phase,’ she said. The Netherlands has been without a government since March 15 when the general election was held. Two attempts to form a new government have failed so far.

The VVD emerged as the biggest party with 33 seats, followed by the anti-immigration PVV on 20, and CDA and D66 on 19. The big parties have all ruled out working together with Geert Wilders’ PVV unless he takes back discriminatory comments about Moroccans.

Read more: Edith Schippers hands over cabinet talks to new chief negotiator - DutchNews.nl

Dutch Political Scene: Why the Dutch need three months to form a government

Two weeks after the Dutch election, the politician leading talks to form a new coalition says it may take three months or more. But far-right leader Geert Wilders, whose party came second, is nowhere to be seen.

He may be the firebrand Dutch politician who dominated the country's most divisive election campaign in years, but Geert Wilders and his anti-immigration Party for Freedom (PVV) have no option but to watch from the sideline as four mainstream parties seek to build the Netherlands' next government.

Talks to form a new coalition, led by incumbent Prime Minister Mark Rutte, began immediately after the March 15 general election. But the main party leaders have refused to deal with the PVV, despite it winning the second-largest number of seats in parliament.

Since World War II, Dutch governments have taken an average of 72 days to be decided, compared to four to six weeks for a typical German coalition. The Dutch record is nearly seven months in 1977, but even that pales in comparison to its neighbor, Belgium, who after its 2010 election took 541 days to agree to a coalition.

Center-right politician Edith Schippers, whose job it is to achieve a new alliance to run the country, believes the new government won't be in place until July at the earliest. On Wednesday, she gave parliament a progress report on negotiations, warning that an agreement before Easter was "highly unlikely," Dutch public broadcaster NOS reported.

So why does coalition-building take so long in the Netherlands, especially when Wilders - the most divisive political player - is not participating?

"What makes it difficult is our truly multi-party parliament, with 13 parties now represented in the lower house," Professor Ruud Koole, a political scientist at Leiden University, told DW. He said Rutte's liberal People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) would not be content with a minority government.

"You don't really have big parties anymore that dominate a coalition. The VVD now needs three other parties to participate, and that takes a long time," Koole said.

Read more: Why the Dutch need three months to form a government | News | DW.COM | 30.03.2017

Netherlands Judiciary: Debt collection agencies poorly regulated and out of control

Dutch Collection Agencies are  out of control

Dutch consumers who find themselves in a debt collection process are not only harassed  by the debt collection agencies,who are poorly regulated in the Dutch judicial system, but will  usually end up deeper in debt.

This shocking finding has become evident from an analysis made by the Dutch Consumer Association (Nederlandse Consumentenbond) of complaints they received at their "Debt Complain Center hotline" which was opened in the spring of this year. On this Hotline more than 200 personal, often deeply disturbing and emotional stories, have disclosed how inhumane people are treated .

The Consumers Association says the situation is totally out of control and Bart Combée, Director of the Dutch consumer association says: “the human dimension in this process is completely lost.

When consumers want to contact the collection agency, they often get no answer or the door slammed in their face. If the collection train starts running, the consumer can usually not stop it, other than by paying”.

The most common complaints about the Dutch debt collection processes are, rapidly increasing and not clearly specified costs. Threatening letters about wage garnishment, foreclosure sales or lawsuits. Even while  the debt collection agencies re not empowered to do so, or when it only concerns a debt of a few euro's.

The Consumer Association wants the Judiciary to establish clear and precise regulations concerning the
procedures to be followed by Dutch collection agencies and also want the Judiciary to firmly intervene when collection agencies violate the rules. It also recommends that companies, collection agencies and bailiffs should be more accessible and willing to offer more customization to the process.

It also wants to see that the intimidating behavior of the collection agencies to be addressed immediately..

Bart Combée, Director of the Consumer association says: 'The human dimension is totally lost in this particular area of the law".

When consumers want to contact the collection agency, they often get no answer, or the door slammed in
their face.

In the Netherlands - once the collection train starts rolling, it wont stop, other than by paying, usually a lot more than expected. This regardless if one disputes a claim".

Dutch law on debt collection (under the hereditary responsibility clause)  even allows claims to be made to people whose debts are not theirs, but debts owed by family members ( parents) who had deceased  

These outdated Dutch legal laws, unfortunately, still remain on the Judicial books in the Netherlands The Dutch Consumer Agency  wants the Netherlands parliament to intervene in this matter but so far noting really concrete or significant has happened.

 Almere-Digest

The Netherlands: Dutch Minster van der Steur in denial about President Erdogan's info on El Bakraoui

Dutch Parliament in session

The Dutch counter-terrorism service NCTB is investigating claims by both Turkey and Belgium that one of the Zaventum airport suicide bombers had been sent back to the Netherlands last year.

Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday night that Ibrahim El Bakraoui had been picked up on the Turkish border with Syria last year and that both Belgium and the Netherlands were warned he was ‘a foreign fighter’, broadcaster Nos says.

El Bakraoui was sent to the Netherlands at his own request, after Belgium failed to find any terrorist links, Erdogan is reported to have said. He is then thought to have travelled on to Belgium.

Belgium’s justice minister, Koen Geens, later confirmed that El Bakraoui, 29, was sent to the Netherlands. He was not known as a terrorist but was on parole for other crimes, Geens is quoted as saying by VRT news.

 According to the Standaard newspaper, he had been sentenced to nine years in jail in 2011 for an armed robbery and was released on parole in 2014.

At  first Dutch ministers avoided any commenst and the claims and inquiries about this case were being referred to the NCTB,  Dutch News agency Nos said .

Tonight Thursday March 24, however,  Dutch minister of Safety and Security  Ard van der Steur said in a letter he addressed to the Dutch Parliament that the statement made by Turkish President Erdogan about El Bakraoui were not as he perceived them and he gave a "variety of answers" why he thought so.

Once again, the above showed how disorganized and poorly coordinated vital security information, in this case pertaing to the criminal activities of El Bakraoui, were being handled.

A Dutch parliamentarian noted : "instead of trying to duck the fact that he failed to deal properly with this issue, Mr. van der Scheur should follow the example of his Belgian colleague and at least hand in his resignation".

Almere-Digest

Woede om VVD-gegraai .....

VVD-fractieleider Halbe Zijlstra heeft zich uw woede op zijn hals gehaald door een mooi verhaal op te hangen over uw loon, terwijl u flink wordt gekort op uw vakantiegeld.

Zijlstra liet gisteren weten dat u maandelijks meer nettoloon zult ontvangen. Met die uitlating probeerde de liberaal op slinkse wijze een nieuwe nivelleringsoperatie van het kabinet te verbloemen. U krijgt namelijk beduidend minder vakantiegeld.

Uiteindelijk moest minister Henk Kamp van Economische Zaken met de billen bloot tijdens het vragenuurtje, meldt De Telegraaf.

Middeninkomens zien tot ruim 250 euro vakantiegeld verdwijnen. De VVD  benadrukt echter dat er gekeken moet worden naar het "totaalplaatje".

"Wat een 'gebrabbel' van Halbe Zijlstra .......

Read more: PowNed : Woede om VVD-gegraai

EU-US Trade Negotiations: French senators strongly attack trade deal - What about Dutch Parliament? Asleep?

During a debate in the French Senate, all political parties harshly criticized the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), but the French government defended the potential deal, EurActiv France reports.

The minister in charge of foreign trade, Nicole Bricq, admit with regret that France was the country where the mobilisation against what they call the 'transatlantic treaty', is the strongest.

A debate, which took place in the Senate on Thursday (9 January), showed bipartisan opposition to the agreement and the government found itself somewhat isolated on the topic after facing criticism from
speakers from all political sides.

he former French interior minister, Jean-Pierre Chevènement, reminded that the idea for a partnership was first and foremost an American idea, as the US wished to rebalance the trade surplus that the EU had with the country and bring back jobs to their continent.

“The companies’ interests are not always those of the states," warned  a politician, who considers that the currency issue should have been settled before signing a trade agreement.

“We should have put in place a transatlantic snake in the tunnel in order to establish, softly, a real parity between the euro and the dollar. We cannot talk about free trade when the parity between euro and
dollar go from one to two in ten years only.”

In his opinion, this aspect should be included in the negotiations, but the minister Bricq replied it was not on the agenda.

André Gattolin, a Green MP, also strongly opposed the partnership project, said that Europe had its own identity and should preserve it.  He also put forward the impact it would have on inequality in different European countries.

“We are promised 0.5% growth but only some zones will take advantage of it like the ports of Rotterdam and Antwerp,” the MP went on to say.

“As it is, this project is bad and we saw with the NSA scandal that the dice are loaded,” he added.

Jean Bizet from the centre-right opposition, UMP, expressed concern about the food and agriculture aspects of the deal and notably the milk file, as cheese imports increase in France and milk producing regions grow anxious at the end of milk quotas in 2015.

The sharpest remark came from a member of the government's socialist majority, Marie-Noëlle Lienemann.

“I am very hostile to this treaty,” she said. “We are forced to note that happy globalisation did not happen! … multinational companies are in a situation that we cannot regulate,” she added.

The MP was sceptical about the growth perspectives, too. She added that the promised growth points could be reached with a recovery policy supported by large-scale work projects.

Read more: French senators strongly attack EU-US trade deal | EurActiv

The Netherlands Privacy Rights: Google breaking data protection law in the Netherlands says Government

broke data protection law in the Netherlands when the ad giant tweaked its privacy policy in March 2012, says the country's privacy watchdog.

\The Dutch Data Protection Authority said on Thursday that Google had breached the country's rules because it had failed to adequately inform all its users in advance about the changes it was making to its service.

"Google spins an invisible web of our personal data, without our consent. And that is forbidden by law", said Dutch DPA chairman Jacob Kohnstamm.

The regulator said it had invited the company to a hearing. It will only decide on any enforcement action after discussions have taken place with Google.

The DPA said that, during its seven-month probe, the watchdog determined that Google burrowed deeply into the personal data of Dutch netizens by knitting together services across the web for the purposes of targeted advertising.

"Some of these data are of a sensitive nature, such as payment information, location data and information on surfing behaviour across multiple websites. Data about search queries, location data and videos watched can be combined, while the different services serve entirely different purposes from the point of view of users," it said.

The watchdog concluded that Google had not sought the consent of users before cutting and shutting its privacy policies together in order to combine personal data across its massive online empire.

Read more: Google in Dutch: Privacy changes BREAK data law, says Netherlands • The Register