Ersilia de Lannooy Ank Bijleveld-Schouten
On November 10, 2007 the Netherlands opened an account with the Bank of the Netherlands Antilles for the debt restructuring and elimination of arrears in payments of the Country of the Netherlands Antilles and the Island Territories of Curaçao and St. Maarten.
On December 11, 2008 an amount of 464 million guilders (203 million Euros) was deposited on this account for the elimination of the payment arrears of the Central Government, Curaçao and St. Maarten. On Friday, December 19, the Minister of Finance of the Netherlands Antilles, Ersilia de Lannooy, and the State Secretary of the Interior and Kingdom Affairs, Ank Bijleveld-Schouten, signed a confirmation of the arrangements made to such effect, at the Bank of the Netherlands Antilles in Curaçao.
Signing such confirmation the Netherlands meets its financial obligations agreed upon in the Final Declaration of November 2, 2006 and the Coalition Agreement of August 28, 2007.
The Netherlands has set aside approximately 1.7 billion Euros for the debt restructuring. The debt restructuring consists of two components. About 240 million Euros have been allocated for elimination of the payment arrears, while the rest of the amount will be used for debt repayments plus interest.. For the BES islands an amount of 27 million Euros to be used for the settlement of payment arrears was deposited on an account with the Bank of the Netherlands Antilles as early as November 2007.
As financial supervision by the Financial Supervisory Body became operative on December 10, 2008, the debt rescheduling may begin. Thus the Netherlands meets the arrangements made with the Central Government and the various Island Territories.
As soon as the payment arrears have been verified by auditors, actual restructuring can be effected. For the takeover of debt titles (loans and the like) arrangements have been made with the Central Government and Curaçao. St. Maarten has no debts on the basis of loans.