It seems relations within the kingdom are once again a bit stressed. There is growing resentment over the Netherlands’ intention based on advice by the Committee for Financial Supervision CFT to impose a budgetary instruction on Curaçao, despite extraordinary socioeconomic circumstances caused by the worsening crisis in neighbouring Venezuela.
As the Isla refinery leased by troubled “Petroleos de Venezuela” PDVSA until the end of this year has been mostly idle for an extended period already, the local oil, shipping and other related sectors have taken a huge blow, with thousands of direct and indirect jobs at stake. Even the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned against counterproductive austerity measures.
The Parliament in Willemstad has now unanimously passed a motion that, should such an instruction come from The Hague, steps will be taken to end the current consensus Kingdom Law Financial Supervision, which is also applicable to St. Maarten.
The Parliament of Aruba, based on comments from the country’s Council of Advice, just made changes to its own National Ordinance Financial Supervision originally agreed on with the Netherlands, and omitted practically all references to the kingdom. Dutch State Secretary of Home Affairs and Kingdom Relations Raymond Knops said he would study the outcome.
St. Maarten is currently allowed limited budgetary deficits as an exemption due to the impact of catastrophic Hurricanes Irma and Maria in September 2017 but depends on liquidity support from the Netherlands to cover them. However, meeting the CFT’s and Dutch government’s requirements with amendments has taken so much time that a majority of Parliament in Philipsburg last week refused to handle the already-very-late draft 2019 budget until early July which, according to government, can have serious negative consequences.
All this is casting a shadow over the upcoming Inter-Parliamentary Kingdom Consultations IPKO in The Hague and particularly efforts to establish a kingdom dispute regulation. St. Maarten may now reconsider its participation altogether in view of the most recent developments. That’s perhaps for the best, so the selected delegation members stay home with plenty of opportunity to peruse and pass the country’s long-awaited budget.
