THE HAGUE - The Dutch cabinet has not reached an agreement with Curaçao and Sint Maarten about a new support package. This was announced by Prime Minister Eugene Rhuggenaath on Friday after the Kingdom Council of Ministers. The Prime Minister of Aruba is still in discussions with the cabinet.

The prime ministers of the kingdom's three Caribbean countries traveled to The Hague especially for the consultation. They do not agree with the conditions that the Dutch government has set for the new loans. The support is needed because the economy on the islands has largely come to a halt due to the corona crisis.

Rhuggenaath hopes to reach an agreement in the coming weeks. "It was a good conversation," he said. The conversations will continue. The prime minister hopes to be out within a few weeks. Rhuggenaath is open to improvements and reforms, he said.

The Netherlands has already granted aid, but the third aid package sets a series of conditions that the three islands are angry about. For example, the islands must implement reforms, something that the Netherlands has been pushing for a long time. The idea is that the islands' economy will become less vulnerable and that they will be better able to deal with setbacks in the future.

The islands consider the Dutch requirements unreasonable and do not fit within the way in which the countries in the Kingdom interact with each other. In any case, they want more time to implement any reforms.

The pain for the islands is, among other things, the establishment of an institution that will supervise the budget. Rhuggenaath said he was not against that, but according to him it should be something they will organize together with the Netherlands.