US Party MP Rolando Brison.
PHILIPSBURG–United St. Maarten Party (US Party) is “vehemently against” any unilateral takeover of anything handled under the autonomy of St. Maarten.
This was the firm view of US Party faction leader Rolando Brison, who made the statements in an invited comment on the motion supported by a broad majority of the Second Chamber of the Dutch Parliament, who are in favour of starting dialogue with the St. Maarten government to see if the Netherlands should take over management of law enforcement on the island.
“The US Party is vehemently against any blatant unilateral takeovers of any sort of things that are handled under the autonomy of St. Maarten. We have no problem cooperating with kingdom partners, which is allowed under Article 38 and 39 of the Statuut, but this motion doesn’t read as a cooperative effort. It reads as a total takeover,” Brison told The Daily Herald.
“What is also interesting is: why is it that there is constantly a need to take over what, in their eyes, are critical judicial and finances of St. Maarten, but why has no motion come forward to take care of urgent housing needs, to take over the urgent needs of the environment and waste management, to take over the urgent needs of the social welfare of our people and to take over the needs of our University of St. Martin?
“These are things that we never hear from the Netherlands about, but for some reason the topics are always pointed at our finances and our judicial areas. We welcome cooperation within the kingdom, but we do not stand for unilateral takeovers of anything within St. Maarten,” Brison noted.
The motion, filed last week by Member of Parliament (MP) Chris van Dam of the Christian Democratic party CDA, together with five other MPs, mustered a broad support of 10 parties, representing 107 of the 150 seats in the Second Chamber.
Brison said any improvements that St. Maarten wanted to make with its finances through the judicial system, education, housing and waste management, etc., through the capital budget, have consistently been rejected each year by “the Dutch-implemented” Committee for Financial Supervision CFT.
“So here we are. Over the years we have tried. Various governments have tried to include these things in financial capital and it’s been rejected by the CFT as not a priority. Then, years later, after not being able to invest in these critical areas, when things aren’t going as well as they should, we are the ones shouldering the blame.
“As a new country, if we can’t invest in things that are important for our people, then of course it will be very difficult and it will be a huge uphill battle to improve those things.”
The parties that voted for the motion on Tuesday were Socialist Party (SP), Labour Party PvdA, the liberal democratic VVD party, the green left party GroenLinks, the CDA, ChristianUnion, Forum for Democracy FvD, the DENK party, the reformed Christian party SGP, the Party for Animals PvdD and member Van Kooten-Arissen.
Van Dam filed the motion last week Thursday during the handling of the draft 2020 budget for Kingdom Relations, together with MPs André Bosman (VVD), Ronald van Raak (SP), Attje Kuiken (PvdA), Nevin Özütok (GroenLinks) and Stieneke van der Graaf (ChristianUnion).
The motion mentioned the “big concerns about the enforcement of law and order in St. Maarten” and “considering that a proper functioning of the state of law and of law enforcement is a basic condition for the functioning of any society.”
The motion requested that the Dutch government enter into consultations with the St. Maarten government to discuss the separation of management and authority of maintaining law and order to see in what way the Netherlands could play a bigger role in managing law enforcement for a period of five years.
State Secretary of Home Affairs and Kingdom Relations Raymond Knops advised against the motion last week. He said that Van Dam’s motion went against the principle of the division of responsibilities within the Kingdom and the autonomous position of St. Maarten as a country. He said that executing this motion meant restricting St. Maarten’s autonomy and that assuming the task of law enforcement could only take place based on a consensus regulation.
Source: The Daily Herald https://www.thedailyherald.sx/islands/91819-us-party-vehemently-against-unilateral-takeover-by-dutch
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