CHECKING REGISTRATIONS

The last few weeks I have started to take my political activities up a notch. With the European elections and the community elections coming up this year and next year the political parties are taking up their campaigning activities and so does the party that I joined a year or two ago, D66. As a social-liberal party they have the following guidelines for their political points of view:

- trust in the self-relying power of people;

- think and act international;

- reward performance and share prosperity;

- strive for a sustainable and harmonious society;

- cherish the fundamental rights and shared values;

On paper this is beautiful and very impressive, but in practice it is not always easy to act in line with all these guidelines. In essence, it is completely in line with my own views as a liberal with high regard for the person of the individual in our current society. I joined a working group on public transport in the city of The Hague; I volunteered to be president of a voting office here in town for the European elections on the 4th of June of this year and I volunteered to write some texts for the campaign for the European elections. I would have liked to have contributed to the special D66-web log on the 4th of June but it is not possible and not democratically sound to combine contributing to a web log and president of a voting office. You have to keep these activities carefully separated.

Our member in the European Parliament, Sophie in 't Veld has been very active in the field of gay rights on a European level; she was even arrested during a demonstration in Moscow. I am confident that she will be again chosen to be an MEP; if we can rely on the polls she will be joined by someone else. She will receive my vote because she is also very active in the field of privacy protection, especially vis-à-vis the US.

Later more on my activities.