THE HAGUE - The Aruban parliament chairman Ady Thijsen does not think that he has given up too much to get his amendment to the proposal for the Kingdom Disputes Act passed by the Second Chamber of the Dutch Parliament. “We could not say: all or nothing. Otherwise we would be back to the beginning, 10 years ago.” He has therefore set his hope in the Dutch Senate.

In his new weakened amendment, a separate section for Kingdom disputes is proposed. This is placed with the Council of State. Whether that is possible, remains to be determined. A majority of the Second Chamber voted in favor of the Thijsen amendment to amend the Kingdom Act accordingly.

But Thijsen therefore first had to scrap an important condition to get support from the Dutch MPs. Namely that the arrangement would be binding for all countries including the Netherlands. But the Netherlands still does not want that. Thijsen acknowledges that there is still insufficient support for this. Aruba does not give up the fight, he says.

After the Second Chamber will vote on the bill after the summer recess, the Senate will then consider the law. “They can say: nice, but this Kingdom Act does not meet what the assignment was. So then we still have a chance that it goes back to the Second Chamber. And we are right."

"No support at all"

The Curaçao parliament also immediately decided not to agree with the current bill of Undersecretary Knops. Parliamentarian Giselle MC William, who already spoke out against the proposal in the Second Chamber last week, says that there is no support at all. “While that is precisely the spirit of the Statute of the Kingdom: support. We have no vote in both the Second Chamber and the Senate, it is hoped that the Senate will have their sense of justice and democratic spirit prevail, ”says Mc William.

Undersecretary Raymond Knops says there is understanding of the islands for the proposal

A delegation from Aruba, Curaçao and Sint Maarten traveled to The Hague in April to emphasize that they only agree with the proposal that all parties agreed in 2015. That proposal was about an independent body that must make binding judgments about the legal interpretation of the Statute.

Mc William was positive at the time, but she has come back from that. "Politics remains political and The Hague remains The Hague when it comes to our islands."