The border control agreement

By Hilbert Haar

The mutual agreement between the Netherlands and St. Maarten that regulates the strengthening of border control through the deployment of Dutch officers from the Royal Marechaussee and the Customs Department officially states that St. Maarten’s Minister of Justice remains responsible for the policy and the execution of border control.

It sounds good and may give some people the cozy feeling that St. Maarten remains in control of its own affairs. But further down in the agreement we found the composition of a Progress Committee that will monitor the project. That committee is dominated by representatives from the Netherlands – they have a 6 to 4 majority in this committee.

So our Minister of Justice may be “responsible” but that does not mean that he can call the shots (no pun intended).

Okay, let’s not forget that our Minister of Justice signed this agreement under pressure. It was a requirement for the release of the €550 million recovery fund. To get something at times you have to give up something else.

And while the Dutch dominate the Progress Committee there is still another aspect that is bothering me. The project will continue until January 1, 2020 – therefore, for two years. The agreement does not say how many Marechaussees and how many Customs officers from the Netherlands will be deployed to strengthen the country’s borders. But it does say that the funding for these activities will come from the recovery fund.

Now, to most of us, €550 million – $660 million at the current rate of exchange – sounds like a lot of money. But there is only so much one can do with that fund. At least $48 million will go to budget support for the year 2017; probably an even greater part will go to budget support for 2018, though no decision we know of has been taken about this yet.

Given the expected huge shortfall this year, the recovery fund will have to be plundered for a significantly higher amount than was already done for 2017. It could be as much as $100 million. This way we are down to a little by more than $500 million from which the unknown factor of the border control project still has to be deducted.

I do not dare to link a number to that unknown factor, but you see where this is going.

Let’s not forget that St. Maarten will have some serious needs in the coming years. With a collapsed economy and huge unemployment – the number of 6,000  has been mentioned – St. Maarten is in for a rough ride and for unpredictable social issues.

To calm those waters – or to at least keep the situation under control, Marechaussees and Customs officers from the Netherlands are not going to present much of a solution.

People need to eat, they need a roof over their heads; all those things cost money and that money has to come from the recovery fund as well. If that money dries up, all hell is going to break loose.

State Secretary Raymond Knops (Kingdom Affairs) has already suggested that the money that is currently available for the recovery fund might not be enough.

I think that Knops hit the nail on the head but what is he going to do about it?