THE HAGUE - The six Caribbean islands have received 1.3 billion euros in corona support from the Netherlands since the start of the corona crisis. This is apparent from an overview of the draft National Budget for Kingdom Relations 2022.
The largest expenses on the list are the seven tranches of liquidity support for Curaçao, Aruba and Sint Maarten (CAS). Curaçao received 333.5 million euros in support in 2020. In 2021 this was 164.4 million euros so far. Aruba was awarded 207 million euros in 2020, this year to date an additional 328 million euros. The smaller Sint Maarten has received 92 million euros in 2020 and 70 million so far in 2021.
In addition to the loans, there were also gifts for food aid. In 2020, 41 million euros was donated to the CAS islands and in 2021 another 44 million.
The public entities Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba have also received extra funds to compensate for loss of income in connection with the corona pandemic. In 2020, a total of seven million was paid out to the BES islands and more than nine million in 2021.
Extra costs that had to be incurred during the parliamentary elections in March due to the pandemic were also compensated and money was also paid out for support to the cultural sector, namely 165,000 euros to Bonaire, 75,000 euros to Sint Eustatius and 60,000 euros to Saba.