THE HAGUE - The draft Kingdom Act establishing the Caribbean Body for Reform and Development (COHO) has been amended on three important points after negotiation with Curaçao. This is what Undersecretary Raymond Knops has in answers to questions from the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Kingdom Affairs.
First of all, the starting point since the beginning of the negotiations has been that the COHO cannot take over national powers laid down in law.
In addition, it has been added to the proposal that at least one of the three members of the COHO must have demonstrable affinity with the Caribbean part of the Kingdom, in order to guarantee the representativeness of the COHO.
Finally, the proposal includes that the Kingdom Act will be evaluated after three years by an independent committee consisting of members to whom Curaçao must partially agree.
Support base
The draft Kingdom Act establishing the COHO is currently submitted to the Council of State of the Kingdom for advice. Intensive talks with Aruba and Curaçao preceded the decision-making to send the proposal to the Council of State.
These discussions were focused on gaining support for the proposal. Undersecretary Knops will later respond to the advice of the Council of State of the Kingdom.
After this advice, the bill, in accordance with the usual procedure, including the further report, will be submitted to the Second Chamber of the Dutch Parliament for consideration. Only then will the undersecretary conduct substantive discussions with the Second Chamber on this subject.
Country packages
Regarding the country package, the biggest change is the proposed increase in the retirement age. Raising the retirement age is important for the sustainable sustainability of the system, according to Knops.
“But Curaçao raised the age from 60 to 65 in one go in 2013. In the national package, the retirement age will be increased to 66 years with the notion that, when independent research shows that an increase to 67 by 2025 is not feasible, alternative proposals with the same budgetary effect will be presented by Curaçao,” says Knops.
In addition, the options for strengthening the business climate were discussed. In fact, this was a continuation of the talks that were already being held under the Growth Agreement.
The economy of Curaçao also experienced a sharp contraction before the corona crisis. It is important for the country that fundamentally healthy companies can be maintained. That is why the Growth Agreement provided for an exploration of options for developing guarantee instruments for essentially healthy companies.
Discussions about this had already started and are now being continued. This has resulted in the Netherlands being prepared to investigate the feasibility of such an instrument for Curaçao and to make an amount of up to 20 million euros available for this,” says Knops.