After Curaçao and Aruba (see related story) announced reaching agreement with the Netherlands on continued liquidity support combined with restructuring measures and investments, St. Maarten is the only Dutch Caribbean country yet to do so. That should not be viewed as a disqualification, but rather encouragement to finalise the process of meeting conditions for the already-received second tranche of soft loans.
Once the Committee for Financial Supervision CFT gives its blessings, talks on a third tranche can start. In any case, The Hague has accommodated some variation in approach for the three islands and it is not like having to stick exactly to what the others approved.
To be sure, tough negotiations lie ahead for the government in Philipsburg while those in Willemstad and Oranjestad appear to have completed the bulk of theirs. A bit of reservation concerning the latter is in order, because – as usual – the proof of the pudding will be in the eating, or in this case implementing what was put on paper.
A key aspect remains the relevant Dutch entity now known as Caribbean Body for Reform and Development COHO in Curaçao and Caribbean Reform Entity CHE in Aruba. In both cases significant changes were made to what had originally been proposed.
Moreover, this means St. Maarten probably may seek similar adjustments to its own version of the new supervisory organisation. In fact, studying the two other arrangements made can help achieve a good result, considering that ongoing financial assistance is simply indispensable certainly for the time being while the tourism economy slowly but – hopefully – surely bounces back from this unprecedented coronavirus-related socioeconomic crisis.
A framework issued by the United States Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and reported on in Tuesday’s paper for cruise ships to sail with passengers in American waters again shows this might take a while with, for example, building sufficient onboard laboratory capacity and initially mock cruises during a trial period. Nevertheless, the general guidelines and rules of the game have at least been set so that this industry of great importance to “The Friendly Island” is able to move forward.
When it comes to air arrivals the “urgent advice” to people in the Netherlands against non-essential travel abroad until mid-January at first glance does not seem very favourable. However, Prime Minister Mark Rutte did say “the Caribbean part of the Kingdom is not treated as foreign,” which could possibly make the islands some of the few feasible destinations left for persons who still want to go on a vacation, especially ones with sunny weather.
It would help in that sense if local COVID-19 numbers stopped fluctuating and went down consistently so the code orange risk-assessment for St. Maarten by Dutch health authorities could be revised to yellow. That would send a much-needed reassuring message also to other visitor source markets, but depends on responsible behaviour by the entire population on either side of the border.
