THE HAGUE - At the last minute, the parliamentary delegations of Curaçao, Aruba and Sint Maarten refrain from presenting their alternative version of a Kingdom Disputes Act. It was announced that they would do so tomorrow on the second day of the Interparliamentary Kingdom Consultation in The Hague.
To everyone's surprise, IpKo chairman Paul announced at the end of day 1 that the agenda item had been deleted; without explaining the how and why of the remarkable decision. Apparently the Caribbean delegations are less united than they would have believed during their preliminary tripartite consultations on Monday.
The file has a long history. In 2010, it was included in the Charter that there must be a dispute settlement for the Kingdom. After a joint committee and then the governments were unable to resolve the matter, the then Minister of Kingdom Relations Plasterk, without consulting the other countries, put together a bill that did not meet the principles discussed earlier (during the IpKo).
Despite the grumbling on the Caribbean side, the Dutch House of Representatives passed the law. However, the Dutch Senate had difficulty with a consensus-state law, which 3 of the 4 countries involved had fundamental objections to. Plasterk's successor Knops withdrew the bill. It was decided to leave the initiative to the parliaments of Curaçao, Aruba and Sint Maarten. According to IpKo chairman Paul, their proposal will be postponed to the next IpKo.