For constitition day: reflection and determining what's to gain or lose by leaving the Kingdom. “There is unfinished business”

People of St. Maarten.

Sixteen years ago, at the stroke of midnight, the Netherlands Antilles ceased to exist and St. Maarten was born as an autonomous country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. We like to say it is the day we became a country.

Today I wish to speak not only as President of Parliament, but as someone who walked that road from the beginning. I ask your indulgence for a few personal memories, and then a few honest questions.

The road

It did not begin in 2010. It began with generations who believed St. Maarten should decide its own affairs. In June 2000, our people made that belief official. In a referendum, a clear majority chose separate status as a country within the Kingdom.

A referendum is a mandate. Keeping it took ten years.

As Commissioner responsible for constitutional affairs, I was given the task of leading St. Maarten through that process. There were round table conferences in The Hague, in Willemstad, and right here at home. There were agreements on debt, on law enforcement, on financial supervision. There were many drafts of the Constitution before the one that became law.

We negotiated with partners far larger than ourselves. We did not always get what we wanted. But we never forgot whose mandate we carried. It was yours, given in 2000.

And I want to recognize the many who carried it with me: civil servants who wrote and rewrote, Island Council members across party lines, legal advisors, community voices who held our feet to the fire. These were not only authors, they were builders.

The first years

I remember that night: the flag, the crowd, the emotions. And I remember the morning after, when the celebration was over and the work began.

I had the honor of serving as the first Prime Minister of St. Maarten. We were not handed an instruction manual. We had a constitution, a Parliament, a Council of Ministers and the rest was up to us.

We built ministries from island departments. We set up the High Councils of State: the Council of Advice, the General Audit Chamber, the Ombudsman. We established a Constitutional Court, something even the Netherlands does not have, so that every citizen's fundamental rights could be tested against our laws. We took our seat in the Kingdom Council of Ministers, where St. Maarten now speaks for itself.

We made mistakes. But we made them as a country, and we owned them as a country. That, too, is what self-government means.

What it has meant

So, sixteen years on, what has it meant to become an autonomous part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands?

It has meant that decisions about St. Maarten are made in St. Maarten first and foremost, by people you elect and can hold to account. It has meant a voice of our own in the Kingdom, in the region, and with our neighbors in Saint Martin. It has meant institutions that watch over government, and that government must answer to.

Our autonomy came with agreements or better said conditions. Debt relief came with financial supervision. After Covid, the help we needed came with country packages and terms we did not write. An island-nation of some fifty thousand (some say sixty) people must carry every function of a state, with a civil service that is stretched thin. And too often, the relationship within the Kingdom has felt less like partnership and more like imposition.

None of this makes 10-10-10 less of a milestone. It makes it more of a responsibility. A constitution gives you the right to govern yourself. It is a pact.

Leaving the Kingdom: a balance sheet

There is a question we cannot avoid on days like this. Our ultimate independence. I prefer to call it what it means: leaving the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Independence is a word that stirs the heart. Leaving the Kingdom is a decision you make with the head, and that is how it should be discussed.

We should first be clear about where we stand. In the eyes of international law, St. Maarten is not a state. The Kingdom of the Netherlands is the sovereign state; we are one of its four constituent countries, autonomous at home but represented abroad by the Kingdom. Treaties are concluded by the Kingdom, though none should bind us without our consent. We may join international organizations in our own right, which is why we hold associate memberships in bodies such as UNESCO and ECLAC, but not a seat at the United Nations. Since 1955, the UN has regarded us as having achieved self-government, and the Netherlands has accepted that our right to self-determination, including independence, remains open.

So our country status is a constitutional status within the Kingdom, not a sovereign one. Leaving the Kingdom arrangement is the step that would turn an autonomous country into a state in the eyes of the world.

Too often the debate stops at one line: we would no longer have to give account, to the CFT, to The Hague, to anyone. That is true. But it is one entry on a balance sheet that has many. If we left, the Kingdom affairs that others now carry for us would become ours alone. So let us ask, area by area: what would we lose, and what would we gain?

Every line needs real numbers: what an embassy costs, what a coast guard costs, what our debt would cost without a Kingdom behind it, and what our people's passports are worth to them in daily life.

So I propose that we draw up this balance sheet properly, as a country, with facts and without fear. Not to push us toward leaving, and not to scare us into staying. But so that whenever our people are asked, they can choose with their eyes open. And if the balance sheet tells us that staying is the wiser course, then it also tells us what to demand of the partnership: equal treatment, a fair dispute regulation, and respect for the autonomy we already have.

The road to a referendum

A balance sheet only matters if, in the end, the people get to weigh it. Our country status itself was born of a referendum. Any change to that status, whether leaving the Kingdom or redefining how we stay in it, must be decided the same way: by the people of St. Maarten.

Yet sixteen years after 10-10-10, we still lack the instrument to do it. Article 92 of our Constitution provides for referendums to be regulated by national ordinance. That ordinance has never been made. As things stand today, a country that owes its existence to a referendum cannot readily hold one.

That is why I have initiated the Referendum Ordinance. It is meant to give us a clear, lawful framework: who may call a referendum, how the question is set, how the people are informed, and what weight the outcome carries.

The road from here is clear. First, Parliament must debate and adopt the ordinance, after the advice of the Council of Advice. Second, the balance sheet must be drawn up, so that the people are informed by facts and not by slogans. Third, the question must be put fairly, with honest options and a neutral information campaign. And fourth, whatever the people decide must be taken to our Kingdom partners as a mandate, not as a suggestion.

I ask my colleagues in Parliament, across all factions, to treat this ordinance not as one Member's initiative, but as unfinished business of 10-10-10. The people gave us our status. They should hold the key to its future.

The work ahead

There is unfinished business. The Kingdom still owes us a fair dispute regulation, promised in 2010 and not yet delivered. We must strengthen our finances so that our autonomy rests on our own footing. We must invest in our people and our public service, so that the country we built has the hands to run it. And we must keep our institutions strong, especially when their findings are uncomfortable.

Deeper yet, we need to address the St. Maarten of the future!

We say it so often, and I include myself: it takes all of us. For every task, every challenge, every roadblock and every setback, it takes all of us. I believe that with all my heart.

But someone has to take up that call. Someone has to lead the pact. Government and Parliament cannot suffice with the words "it takes all of us" and then wait for the people to show up. It is on us to rally our population, to set the direction, and above all to lead by example. When we ask for sacrifice, we must be the first to make it. When we ask for integrity, we must be the first to show it. When we ask for patience, we must be the first to keep our promises.

It takes all of us, yes. But it starts with those of us you have entrusted to lead.

To our young people, who have never known anything but this Country status: this is yours now. You did not have to fight for it, and that is exactly how it should be. But you do have to look after it. Vote. Question. Serve. Hold us to account, including me.

In 2000, our people said we were ready to decide our own future. In 2010, we wrote it into law. Every day since, we have been learning what it truly takes.

So let us celebrate today, with pride and with our eyes open. We did become a constituent country, bound by the rules of the Kingdom Charter. Now let us keep becoming.

Happy Constitution Day, St. Maarten. God bless you, and God bless our beloved country.

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