PHILIPSBURG – The draft Consensus Kingdom Act for the establishment of the Caribbean Body for Reform and Development is definitively off the table. This is what the Prime Ministers of Curaçao, Aruba and Sint Maarten agreed with State Secretary Van Huffelen (Kingdom Relations) during the four-country consultations in Philipsburg.
The COHO Act will be replaced by mutual arrangements between the individual CAS countries and the Netherlands. The details will be worked out in the coming weeks. Little will change in terms of content: the countries will continue to implement the so-called country packages, which include far-reaching reforms.
After the damning advice of the Council of State of the Kingdom (2021) about the COHO law developed unilaterally by the Netherlands, it was clear that it would never be accepted by the Parliaments of Curaçao, Aruba and Sint Maarten. The Dutch House of Representatives also reacted critically. Still, that was no reason for then Secretary of State Knops to withdraw the bill, so it was sent to the parliaments with a few cosmetic adjustments.
In line with expectations, the parliaments made mincemeat of the COHO construction because, in their view, it undermines autonomy. The governments of the CAS countries sent an alternative to Van Huffelen in September. The parties concluded an 'agreement in principle' on this today. They expressed the expectation that the new agreements will be signed in March based on a mutual arrangement.
Knops came up with COHO after the CAS countries were dependent on hundreds of millions in liquidity support from The Hague in early 2020 as a result of the corona crisis. He demanded that the countries implement reforms that had been delayed for years to make their economies and thus public finances more resilient. The intended supervision by COHO was also perceived by neutral observers as a form of guardianship.