THE HAGUE--Three parties in the Dutch Parliament's Second Chamber will submit a motion today, Monday, to give the temporary financial supervision of Countries Curaçao and St. Maarten a more structural character and to continue this supervision after five years, albeit a lighter version.
Labour Party PvdA, Christian Democrat Party CDA and green left party GroenLinks, together forming a majority in Parliament with 81 seats, intend to submit the motion during the second day of the handling of 10 Kingdom Consensus Laws. One of the laws deals with financial supervision for the two future countries.
The Kingdom Consensus Law on Financial Supervision for Curaçao and St. Maarten, which will be voted on in the Second Chamber this Thursday, will be discontinued in five years when the two islands have shown that they can stick to the budget discipline of the Committee for Financial Supervision CFT.
Discontinuing the law can be postponed by two years each time if a country hasn't been able to meet the budgetary requirements. However, the nature of the law is that the current strict financial supervision is finite. This has been agreed on with the Dutch Government.
In their motion, PvdA, CDA and GroenLinks said it was of the utmost importance for the financial positions of Countries Curaçao and St. Maarten that, after financial supervision was dropped, financial norms were anchored in countries' legislation and that the countries would stick to these norms.
The three parties suggested in their motion continuing financial supervision, but in a lighter form, not by law, but on the basis of a mutual agreement as stated in Article 38 of the Kingdom Charter.
After financial supervision had formally ended by law, the countries would have to send their approved annual reports to the Kingdom Council of Ministers. The countries would also have to submit all necessary information the Kingdom Council of Ministers deemed necessary to evaluate whether the countries were living up to the financial norms.
In case Curaçao and St. Maarten didn't comply with these norms, the Kingdom Council of Ministers, based on Article 51 of the Charter, would have the right to reinstitute either partial or full financial supervision on the countries.
The motion of Members of Parliament John Leerdam (PvdA), Bas Jan van Bochove (CDA) and Ineke van Gent (GroenLinks) is expected to receive broad support from, among others, the conservative VVD party, Socialist Party (SP) and Party for Freedom PVV.
Other than an amendment, a motion doesn't lead to a change in the law. The motion merely serves as a request to the Kingdom Council of Ministers to "promote that Dutch Government comes to a mutual agreement with Countries Curaçao and St. Maarten."
