PHILIPSBURG--The process of following up on topics and projects dealt with in the recent Inter-Parliamentary Kingdom Consultation IPKO with Government must start immediately, said Parliament Chairwoman Sarah Wescot-Williams.
Wescot-Williams was one of several Members of Parliament (MPs) who voiced the same sentiment. The idea is for Parliament to be well informed on actions Government must take to comply with the action points from IPKO.
Aside from the follow up, MPs expressed their discontent with negative comments about the country from their Dutch counterparts in the Dutch media.
United St. Maarten Party (USP) leader MP Frans Richardson in Tuesday’s meeting of Parliament’s Permanent Committee for Inter-Parliamentary Affairs and Kingdom Relations decried the presentation made by the Prosecutor’s Office as one of the roots of the negative comments about the situation in the country. It is “unfortunate” the way the information from the Prosecutor’s Office to IPKO has been used by the Dutch media, said Richardson.
United People’s (UP) party deputy leader MP Franklin Meyers said it is “convenient” how the Dutch Government claims some issues as internal for St. Maarten while others they meddle in.
One example of the double standard is the Dutch MPs telling those of St. Maarten they should not seek support from the Dutch for study opportunity in the Caribbean region. That was deemed an internal matter.
Independent MP Leona Marlin-Romeo said St. Maarten must pursue the Netherlands to get the country access to European Union (EU) scholarships for its students. Some 16 billion euros are available in scholarships within the EU, she said.
Marlin-Romeo said she welcomed the possibility for easier travel for residents within the Dutch Caribbean with the use of identification cards, but she urged caution about the security of the cards especially from the other islands.
She said the lack of progress on the dispute regulation was not welcomed. It was clear it was an issue that could have caused the collapse of the Dutch Government had it been pushed. “We saved the Dutch Government ... but they won’t do anything for us,” she said.
Fellow independent MP Cornelius de Weever said he would have never signed the final agreement from IPKO, especially since it expresses disappointment by kingdom MPs with the lack of progress by Governments in the kingdom on the dispute regulation.
“It is not true. The Caribbean Governments were willing. It was Holland. I’m disappointed in Holland and their Minister,” De Weever said.
