Schotte: Finally a platform to interpret Charter

December 19, 2011

WILLEMSTAD — The Minister-President of Curaçao, Gerrit Schotte (MFK), is pleased that after 55 years the Kingdom partners found a platform with the Kingdom Conference; a platform that is to actually interpret the Charter of the Kingdom. The Premier announced this during a press conference Friday evening.Schotte emphasized that the Kingdom Conference with which he had participated was certainly not a round table conference where participants could make binding agreements. It was actually a platform where discussions were held; participants listened to each other and sought solutions collectively.

According to the Minister-President, most partners feel that the Kingdom doesn’t function properly because an actual equality doesn’t exist in practice. Since the enforcement of the Charter 55 years ago, the partners never arranged a platform to discuss the functioning of the Kingdom without it ending in a dispute, said the Premier. The National Council of Ministers can certainly not be considered a platform of equality because it consists of twelve ministers from the Dutch government and hardly one minister plenipotentiary per Caribbean Kingdom part. Subsequently, the opportunity for a Caribbean Kingdom part to be proved ‘right’ in a matter that is on the table is nil, said Premier Schotte.

The beginning of the conference had been far from easy, said Schotte. The Dutch delegation had initially adopted an inflexible attitude, constantly referring back to the Final Agreement of 2006 as a ‘package deal’ that was settled finally. All discussions on actual autonomy for Curaçao for which the people had chosen in the referendum of 2005 were warded off by the Dutch delegation with the preposition: “Your debts have been reconstructed and in return you had to surrender part of your autonomy”, said Schotte.

However, the Curaçao delegation was able to convince the Dutch delegation to consider the practical effect of the agreements that were concluded in 2006, for instance the consensus Statute Laws in the field of justice (police and prison system) and financial supervision. Schotte explained that his government has completed the various plans of approach for the police and justice to implement the necessary improvements. In the field of financial supervision, the government recently established a so-called budgetary chamber that can also arrange the necessary ‘checks & balances’ together with the Cft. According to Schotte, these are examples of criterion which his government created in order to terminate the consensus Statute Laws in the near future, considering the fact that the government is already providing the necessary safeguards.
Source: Amigoe.com