False: “The Netherlands has the most flexible labour market in Europe”

Dutch MEP Agnes Jongerius recently tweeted that the Netherlands has the most flexible labour market in Europe.  Jongerius, MEP for the Labour Party (PvdA) speaks of a ‘flexible labour market’, but what is the exact definition? On March 2017 the University of Amsterdam published a report in which ‘flexible labour market’ is given an understandable…

True: “80 percent of the European money for agriculture goes to the 20 percent largest farmers”

The current European agricultural policy runs until 2020. The discussions about this policy for 2021 have therefore started. Following this discussion, Menno Bentveld, a reporter at the Dutch national radio station NPO Radio 1 called Bas Eickhout, MEP on behalf of GroenLinks. Eickhout claimed that 80 percent of the European agricultural money goes to the…

False: “The travel time from The Netherlands to Berlin by train is as long as twenty years ago”

In an election debate in the Dutch news programme Nieuwsuur, European taxes for plane tickets were discussed. If and when this becomes reality, fast alternatives are important. According to Esther de Lange, member of the European Parliament for the Christian democrats, alternatives are still not fast enough to be an option. She said: ‘The travel…

fact checking

Mostly false: “Contributing to climate policy […] appears to be not that popular with the members of GreenLeft”

Dutch party leader Derk Jan Eppink of Forum for Democracy (FvD) claimed in a televised elections’ debate on 13 May that the Dutch Greens are not very eager to contribute financially to climate change. Eppink based his claim on a recent survey by Ipsos and, as it seems, on an article in national newspaper De Telegraaf.…

fact checking

Mostly false: “Still millions of fraudulent diesel cars driving around in EU”

Dutch MEP Gerben-Jan Gerbrandy recently tweeted that there are still millions of fraudulent diesel cars driving around in Europe. He also claims that the European Union does not take any proper action against those vehicles. But are these numbers correct? And do EU-countries truly ignore what is better known as ‘dieselgate’?

Blog: The curious and complex relationship between European and national legislation

When we started searching for second topic, we realized that statements of Croatian politicians are mostly based on predictions and promises. Fortunately, the political parties started to present their programmes and lists of candidates for the upcoming European elections. The candidates started to appear more in the media and the current Croatian MEP Biljana Borzan’s…

Mostly true: “A quarter of Turkish judges have been sacked”

On 28 February, MEP and Turkey-rapporteur Kati Piri, mentioned several human rights issues and pleaded not to grant Turkey EU-membership. In the popular Dutch talkshow Jinek she said that a quarter of all Turkish judges have been discharged already. In her capacity as rapporteur Piri investigates if Turkey meets the preconditions for EU-membership and if…