Tue, May 22 2012

Dutch website for complaints against Eastern Europeans ‘affront to EU values’, EP President says

Tue, Feb 14 2012 09:08 CET

byThe Sofia Echo staff

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Dutch website for complaints against Eastern Europeans ‘affront to EU values’, EP President says

Martin Schulz, President of the European Parliament

Photo: Reuters

A Dutch web site to collect complaints against Central and East Europeans was among issues criticised as affronts to universal and EU values by European Parliament President Martin Schulz at the opening of the EP’s Strasbourg plenary session.
 
According to a media statement by the European Parliament, Schulz noted complaints from many MEPs that the Dutch Freedom Party (PVV) had opened a web site to collect anonymous complaints about migrant workers from Central and Eastern Europe living in the Netherlands.
 
The site also had been criticised by Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding, Schulz said.

Although he had not seen the site himself, he promised to investigate the matter further, and to raise it with Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte at their meeting early in March.
 
The website created by the far-right PVV invites visitors to lodge complaints against immigrants from Central and Eastern Europe.

The introduction on the website, which the party called the "Central and Eastern European hotline", says: "Are they causing you problems? Or did you lose your job to a Pole, Bulgarian, Romanian or other Central of East European? We would love to hear from you".
 
The site has been condemned by, among others, the foreign ministries of Bulgaria, Romania and Poland.
 

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