Friday to Sunday meetings took place about the future of the islands of the Netherlands Antilles
Here 2 articles and the editorial from the St.Maarten Daily Herald

http://www.thedailyherald.com/news/daily/i107/consul107.html

http://www.thedailyherald.com/news/daily/i107/gibson107.html

http://www.thedailyherald.com/news/daily/i107/edit107.html

Brigitte -

Thank you for going to the trouble to post the links to the Daily Herald.

The stories make most interesting reading. I confess that I have to read them several times to try to understand exactly what is occurring, but that is probably because I am just not familiar with Dutch and NA politics.

Bottom line: does this mean Bonaire is significantly closer to dropping out of the NA and having a "special relationship" with the Netherlands?

Thanks, again, for posting.

Charles Poteet
Dallas

It certainly is rather a confusing subject. As I understand it, The Netherlands accepted to have bilateral talks with the different islands, as the islands pronounced different wishes in the referendum. Saba and Bonaire will work together, as their wishes are the same, but the financial side will be different, as Saba is so much smaller (they have less than 1000 people) so their part of the debts will be much smaller.
The work group on Bonaire should finish their job end of September so for bilateral talk some more details should be discussed.
I would think that Bonaire is " significantly closer" to be out of NA and to become part of The Netherlands

Brigitte -

Thanks so much for the clarification. That makes reading and understanding the news stories so much easier.

The sounds to me to be major news, perhaps the start of an entirely new beginning for Bonaire.

Charles Poteet
Dallas

From the English version of the Amigoe

Pechtold to Antilles

WILLEMSTAD — The Dutch minster of Kingdom relations Alexander Pechtold (D66) will visit the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba from October 14 through the 23rd. This official visit is a prelude to the Governmental Summit to be held on October 21 in Bonaire.

On October 14th and 15th Pechtold will visit Aruba. His official visit to the Antilles will start on the 16th. Pechtold will be attending the 25th anniversary of the Bonaire Marine Park. The day after that he will attend a meeting of the ministerial steering group Security together with his Dutch colleague Henk Kamp (Defense, VVD). Premier Etienne Ys (PAR), minister of Finance Ersilia de Lannooy (PNP) and minister of Justice David Dick (PAR) will be attending the meeting on behalf of the Netherlands Antilles.

The bilateral summit with St. Marten will be held on the 18th. On the 19th Pechtold will meet in Bonaire with representatives of the three islands who expressed their desire to have direct ties with The Netherlands. These islands are Bonaire, Saba and St. Eustatius. Pechtold will first speak to the delegates separately and later on in a joint setting. The bilateral deliberations with Curaçao are scheduled for the 20th followed by the Governmental Summit between the Dutch government, the Antillean government and the different island territories of the Antilles and Aruba on the 21st.

On this same day Pechtold will return to Curaçao to attend the opening of the Marine-days 2005. On Friday the 22nd of October he will partake in the marine voyage which forms part of the Marine-days. He will return to The Netherlands on Sunday

Brigitte, thanks for the update. Does anyone know at this point exactly what it will mean to Bonaire to be part of the Netherlands with no intermediary governing group (like the Neth. Antilles)? For instance, will Bonaire live under the same laws, regulations, taxes, etc., as Holland? There are some significant differences in these areas now. Have these issues been examined and resolved, or are they in the process of being worked out?

The result of the work group (with some dutch experts and locals in it) has not be published yet - so for the moment we know nothing about the details. The idea was something more like Madeira or Teneriffa or the French island rules for the 3 small Antillean islands.... would mean the Euro and certain Dutch rules, but special rules for special situations... one of those are taxes ..... you find information about these rules - p.ex. Madeira or French St.Maarten - on the web site of the European Union

Brigitte -

Thank you for the on-going updates. Most interesting.

Charles Poteet
Dallas

What worries me most in what you have said, Brigitte, is that Bonaire will use the Euro. Although the dollar has risen against the Euro in the last three days, the dollar has fallen considerably since the Euro was introduced and appears unlikely to regain all that ground it has lost.
This suggests the prospect of considerable economic damage to Bonaire if it uses the Euro:
1) Many American residents will be forced by the erosion of buying power from their pensions to return to live in the U.S.
2) Many American tourists will feel they cannot afford to come here for their vacations.
3) Europeans will likewise no longer find the bargains which Bonaire now offers them by permitting them to exchange their Euros for dollars. Therefore European tourism likely will decline as well.
The constant relationship between the Nafl. and the dollar has helped Bonaire's economy to thrive.
Brigitte, do you think Holland might allow Bonaire to continue to use the dollar, just as the British Virgin Islands use the dollar?
Tish

Tish, nobody knows, up to now everything is just speculation.
There is for a quite a time now talk of devalutation of the Nafl (debts of the NA are enormous ! and growing) and that would not help the import (and we eat all nothing than imported goods and lots of it is coming from Europe) - it would perhaps help the tourism...
French St.Maarten lives quite nicely with the Euro and Dutch St.Maarten is more and more forced to accept the Euro as they accept the $$... when the $ was high, we suffered, because there were barely any European tourists coming and Bonaire can not live from US tourism alone ... look at accommodation web sites , quite a number of those with European owners already have their prices in Euros .....
I am not a financial wizard, but I guess, as with most things, there are postive and negative sides to or $ or Euro .....

From the Daily Herald
http://www.thedailyherald.com/news/daily/i131/edit131.html
Talks on Bonaire with the 3 small islands are from Thursday to Saturday on Bonaire

editorial from the Daily Heral
http://www.thedailyherald.com/news/daily/i133/edit133.html
article from the Daily Herald
http://www.thedailyherald.com/news/daily/i133/bilat133.html

Brigitte -

As always, most interesting even if all the nuances are a bit difficult for this foreigner to comprehend.

Thank you taking the time to keep us current.

Charles Poteet
Dallas

Here are two more Daily Herald articles. They emphasize Holland's desire for 'central' entities for courts and defense. Interesting in light of the islands desire to de-centralize.

http://www.thedailyherald.com/news/daily/i134/kamp134.html

http://www.thedailyherald.com/news/daily/i134/pecht134.html

Today's The (Sint Maarten) Daily Herald has three articles about the meeting in Bonaire last Friday. Seems Progress was made; good news.

http://www.thedailyherald.com/

(Message edited by glenr on October 24, 2005)

The St.Maarten Daily Herald
http://www.thedailyherald.com/news/daily/i151/rtc151.html

Here is another important step in the overall process: government debt: the second item. Apparently the debt assumption applies to Bonaire's portion of the Antilles' Central Government debt. An article somewhere else this past week noted that apportionment of the present debt among the islands would have been crushing.

http://www.amigoe.com/english/

The Herald (http://www.thedailyherald.com/) has two articles saying the assumption is currently a suggestion by Tromp rather than the 'done deal' I read into my last post.

From the Daily Herald
http://www.thedailyherald.com/news/daily/i154/rtc154.html

Glen, when putting a link, please open the article and use this link as the Daily Herald itself changes daily .... als all news papers.
I was soooo diappointed that I couldn-t read about the meeting on Bonaire - I was off island at that time ...

The round table conference (last Saturday) looks like it was a succes ... Bonaire, Saba and St.Eustatius will work together and will get a 'special statut' --- Curacao and St. Maarten will get each 'status aparte' as requested (similair to what Aruba has) - the debts will be taken by The Netherlands but they demand control of future budgets - as a date for the change of the statut is the 1st July 2007 in the papers .... no articles yet on the net in the different news papers

Amigoe now has an article about the meetings at http://www.amigoe.com/english/cur_late_news.htm#%91Laying%20a%20new%20foundation%92 .

Thank you Brigitte and Glen for keeping us informed.

Brigitte, Glen -

I add my thanks for the updated information.

What do you think are the odds that the new arrangement, "special statut," actually will occur in the time frame mentioned?

Any word on what the currency will be under the new system?

Charles Poteet
Dallas

Y'all most welcome!

The (Sint Maarten) Daily Herald now has an editorial ( http://www.thedailyherald.com/news/daily/i165/edit165.html ) and an article ( http://www.thedailyherald.com/news/daily/i165/decla165.html ) about the meeting.

Both are upbeat with the reservation that now comes the work. At least, everyone involved seems to be moving in the same direction and intent on making this happen.

Currency: as I understand it, a closer relationship to Holland may involve changing from dollar-bound guilder to the Euro. I hope not for the islands sake though it might be better for NA tourists at the present direction of Euro value. Obviously, I don't have a firm answer., just what I remember reading, likely in BR or a post by Bridgitte. :–)

(Message edited by glenr on November 28, 2005)

Glen -

Thank you for the extra detail and for the educated guess on the direction of the currency.

It is most interesting to hear that the move to a new status has some local momentum.

Charles Poteet
Dallas

On the 23rd and the 24th of November their was a speech of one of the Bonaire deputies on all radio stations around lunch time and in the evening on the local TV channel.... they are happy the the RT conferences are starting, that they are well prepared, that they want Holland to guarantee a good basic income for all people and a good basic pension (which would be about double what the oldies are getting now), they want good controlled government including the budgets and that they will closely together with Saba and St.Eustatius to get things done (and working together was clearly mentioned after the conference). But no details about Euro etc where given, so that can all only be speculation. We have at least to wait till the next RTC next year.

Brigitte, Glen, thank you for the continued updates.

Which deputy was that from which party, Brigette?? Does Holland provide that sort of guarantee to mother country citizens?

It was Dortalina and of course from the UPB, green one, which has the majority in the island parlament and forms the government - the PDB, the red one has started about 10 days ago a big press campaign , everything the green ones are doing is baaaadddd ! Comments of our staff: There are elections in January (for the parlament of the Central Government) and they have to try ... it's just talk to get votes, but it will not work .
The red ones still try to convince the Bonaireans that it is not good to have a direct link with Holland, but I have the impression that there is even a bigger majority on Bonaire in favour as at the time of the referendum last year.A lot of the wealthy Dutch are against it, they are afraid to have to pay more tax, as they have special tax rules at the moment. Its rather funny, the Red calling themself Socialists for the people of Bonaire, getting their votes from the wealthy ones, who only live part of the year on Bonaire ......