THE HAGUE--The Dutch Parliament’s Second Chamber has decided to bypass the Antillean Parliament and engage in direct talks with the Island Councils. It made clear on Wednesday that it didn’t accept the conditions of Antillean Parliament Chairman Pedro Atacho for a meeting in Curaçao in late February.
“I am disappointed,” said the Second Chamber’s Permanent Committee for Antillean and Aruban Affairs NAAZ Chairman Willibrord van Beek about Atacho’s letter, which he had received on Tuesday.
According to Van Beek, Atacho had stated in his letter that the Antillean Parliament didn’t want to have a meeting with NAAZ in February, but preferred to have informal talks prior to the formal handling of the first set of Kingdom Consensus laws in late March or early April. This, however, won’t happen, said Van Beek. And so the Antillean and Dutch Parliaments will only meet in a formal setting during the handling of the Kingdom Consensus Laws.
Atacho furthermore stated that Member of Dutch Parliament (MP) Hero Brinkman of the Party for Freedom PVV would not be welcome at the Antillean Parliament as long as he hadn’t offered his apologies to the people of the Netherlands Antilles for calling their politicians “corrupt” and a “bunch of crooks” during his last visit to Aruba. Brinkman had also insulted Aruban politicians at that time.
Van Beek stated in a meeting of the NAAZ committee Wednesday that Atacho hadn’t taken into account that the Second Chamber also wanted to meet with the Island Councils of Curaçao, Bonaire, St. Maarten, Saba and St. Eustatius during its visit to the Netherlands Antilles to discuss the constitutional future of the islands.
Van Beek’s original plan had included organising meetings with Bonaire and Curaçao in the latter island, and travelling to St. Maarten to have a meeting there with the Island Council. The Island Councils of Saba and St. Eustatius were to be invited to come to St. Maarten. Van Beek said it would be too costly for all Island Councils to travel to the Netherlands. Curaçao had already indicated that it wanted to come to The Hague.
Initially, Van Beek had planned to also meet with the Antillean Parliament in Curaçao, but NAAZ decided to drop that plan after Atacho’s letter. The Committee members agreed that the meetings with the Island Councils should proceed. “We have said that we also wanted to talk to the Island Councils, and I think it would be a bit short-range to say that we are not going anymore based on the reply by the Antillean Parliament,” said MP Bas Jan van Bochove of the governing Christian Democratic Party CDA. “We will not allow the Antillean Parliament to dictate to us,” said MP Brinkman.
Brinkman’s apologies to the Antillean people are not a condition that has to be met in order for the Dutch delegation to travel to Curaçao, because NAAZ’s meetings with the Curaçao and Bonaire Island Councils would take place outside the Antillean Parliament anyway. Van Beek said he was considering renting the conference room at Avila Beach Hotel for this purpose.
Van Beek told the Committee that the planned visit of NAAZ to Curaçao hadn’t been well received. Besides the fact that the Antillean Parliament didn’t want to meet in Curaçao in February, and the condition that Brinkman had to publicly apologise, Atacho stated in his letter that the Antillean Parliament didn’t want to discuss the recent report of the Democratic Deficit Committee at this point. According to Atacho, the report should be discussed at a later stage, when the Parliaments of Countries Curaçao and St. Maarten have been established.
MP Ronald van Raak of the Socialist Party (SP) was obviously highly irritated by the discussion about the trip to the Netherlands Antilles and Atacho’s letter. “I feel like I’m in kindergarten. I’ve had enough of this back and forth,” he said, and left the meeting prematurely.
No date has been set yet for the meetings in Curaçao and St. Maarten. Van Beek said he would be contacting the Island Councils to establish a date.
