WILLEMSTAD – Former Prime Minister Etienne Ys has clarified that his appointment as chairman of the supervisory board of the Central Bank of Curaçao and Sint Maarten (CBCS) in 2017 was based on a nomination from Sint Maarten. His statement adds a new element to the ongoing dispute between the governments of Curaçao and Sint Maarten over which country should nominate the next chair of the central bank.
According to Ys, his nomination followed what he described as a “gentleman’s agreement” between the two countries. “Based on a gentleman’s agreement, I was proposed by Sint Maarten,” he said. He added that, to his knowledge, the arrangement was never formalized through official documents or decrees.
The clarification is significant because the current disagreement between Sint Maarten’s Minister of Finance Marinka Gumbs and Curaçao’s Minister of Finance Charles Cooper reportedly centers on the history of the chairmanship and the informal rotation between the two countries.
Minister Gumbs has argued that Sint Maarten should now have the opportunity to put forward the next chairman. Her position is reportedly based on a prior verbal understanding with former Curaçao Minister of Finance Javier Silvania regarding how the post would rotate between the two countries.
However, Minister Cooper has maintained that it is Curaçao’s turn to nominate the next chair. His position is based on the view that the last mutually agreed chairman was Ys and that he was nominated by Sint Maarten — a point now confirmed by Ys himself.
Although past arrangements regarding the leadership of the CBCS have often been guided by informal agreements rather than written rules, the issue has now become central to the negotiations between the two governments over the bank’s future leadership.
The CBCS plays a key role in overseeing monetary policy and financial supervision within the monetary union of Curaçao and Sint Maarten. As a result, the selection of its leadership is closely watched by policymakers and the financial sector in both countries.