THE HAGUE--Dutch caretaker Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende will arrive in St. Maarten this Sunday at the start of a three-day working visit to the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba.
It will be the Prime Minister's farewell visit to the islands, as he will be leaving active politics after the installation of a new Dutch cabinet. It will be his fourth visit to the islands in his eight-year tenure as Prime Minister. No other Dutch Prime Minister has paid so many visits to the Caribbean part of the Kingdom.
The Final Round Table Conference (RTC) and the preparations for that meeting, which takes place in The Hague on September 9, are the main agenda points of talks Balkenende will have in St. Maarten and Curaçao with the local governments. Balkenende is Chairman of the RTC.
The RTC will serve to conclude the process to realise new constitutional relations in the Dutch Kingdom whereby Curaçao and St. Maarten will become countries and the BES islands Bonaire, St. Eustatius and Saba part of the Netherlands as public entities.
Balkenende's working visit starts in St. Maarten, where he will have meetings with the Executive Councils of all three Windward Islands on Sunday. He and his delegation will travel to Curaçao on Monday for a meeting with Antillean Prime Minister Emily de Jongh-Elhage and Curaçao's Executive Council.
The press release from the Dutch Representation in Willemstad VNW doesn't mention whether Balkenende will also meet with Bonaire's Executive Council during his visit to Curaçao. The Prime Minister will conclude his visit to the islands in Aruba, where he will talk with his Aruban colleague Mike Eman on Tuesday.
