THE HAGUE–The Second Chamber of the Dutch Parliament adopted the 2019 Kingdom Relations budget on Tuesday, but voted down an amendment of the Labour Party PvdA and the green left party GroenLinks to invest an additional one million euros for children in Bonaire, St. Eustatius and Saba.
The voting on the 2019 Kingdom Relations budget took place as part of the voting procedure on all 2019 budgets of the different ministries which were presented to Parliament on the third Tuesday of September this year. The debates on the contents of the budgets took place in the past few months. The debate on the Kingdom Relations budget in October focused on Venezuela, St. Maarten’s recovery after Hurricane Irma and the combating of poverty in the Caribbean Netherlands.
The budget amendment of Members of Parliament (MPs) Attje Kuiken of the PvdA and Nevin Özütok of GroenLinks did not make it, with the parties supporting the government as well as the opposition party Party for Freedom PVV voting against it. The amendment, presented during the budget handling, aimed at a structural increase of the budget for children’s rights by one million euros for at least the next two years. The Dutch government did invest that amount in 2015, 2016 and 2017.
PvdA and GroenLinks wanted to use the money to fund technical assistance for organisations on the islands and the United Nations Children’s Fund UNICEF to build their capacity. The MPs noted that UNICEF had indicated on several occasions that despite the good intentions of several Dutch ministries to combat poverty among children and to tackle child abuse, more needs to be done to create a safe environment for children on the islands.
“It is your most important partner, UNICEF, that says money is needed to carry out the ambitions,” said MP Kuiken during the budget handling in October.
State Secretary of Home Affairs and Kingdom Relations Raymond Knops had advised against the amendment. He said that improvements had already been made with the three million euros of 2015, 2016 and 2017 and that a number of projects were still in execution.
Source: The Daily Herald https://www.thedailyherald.sx/islands/83297-parliament-approves-2019-kingdom-relations-budget
View comments
Hide comments