Message to Rutte, Knops and Girardin
With the call for more generosity coming from the many Famous persons in the Netherlands including two respected former Politicians Alexander Pechtold and Ernst Hirsch Ballin, It sends a strong message to the government in The Hague to be more generous in their dealings with the Caribbean part of the kingdom. The letter which was also signed by the President of the Dutch Central Bank says a lot about how the Rutter cabinet in The Hague, intends to deal with the governments of the Caribbean part of the Kingdom when it comes to financial help. State Secretary for Home Affairs and Kingdom Relations Raymond Knops in his dealings with these countries seemingly treats them as if they cannot be trusted and any help offered or even Loans granted, must be supervised by an additional New Entity to be set up by the Kingdom Government themselves.
The Dutch keeps pushing conditions for support. State Secretary for Home Affairs and Kingdom Relations expects the Government of Aruba, Curacao and St. Maarten to implement reforms in exchange for this support but the signatories to the afore mentioned letter which was written to the Dutch government, have realized the hardship, social and economic misery of the people due to their sole dependency Tourism, and how it has taking a serious hit from COVID-19. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, in a response to the letter says while he understands, he remains Stubborn about set reforms for the Caribbean countries as a condition for help.
Meanwhile, we must not forget the request of two members of the European Parliament Ms. Samira Rafaela from the D66 party in the Netherlands and Madam Stephanie Bijoux From France, who in April 2020, sent a letter to the European Commission in Brussels of which Prime Minister Rutte government is represented, to make urgent provisions for the OCTs and EU citizens considering they are part of the European community.
A portion of the letter stated: “The situation in many OCTs is dire. With income from tourism having come to a halt, these islands are looking at unemployment figures of up to 50%. Therefore, we ask you to conduct a swift assessment of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, before allocating funds. Furthermore, we ask you to assist these OCTs with a simplified and swift procedure that will enable them to rapidly counter and mitigate the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. The latter is of critical importance given the fact that not all of the OCTs have a civil service large enough to successfully complete the normally complex procedures for EU-funding, while also allocating the required resources to battling the direct effects of the COVID-19 outbreak. We are asking you to make the exceptional support fund also directly accessible to NGOs that are already active in OCTs. Many of these have a proven track record, for instance on combatting the consequences of hurricanes and can now directly deliver humanitarian aid. Some of them are already delivering humanitarian aid, albeit without sufficient support.
It is inconceivable that the Mark Rutte led Government in The Hague have not yet realize that the citizens of the Caribbean part of the Kingdom are voters in the European elections and as such (in the words of the EU members of Parliament) “They are our ambassadors in many corners of the world and deserve the Union’s full support during theses times of crisis”. Therefore a more generous consideration is required and not a heavy-handed approach.
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