Wednesday December 9th 2009, in political consultations among the Netherlands, the Netherlands Antilles, Curaçao and St. Maarten, the basis was laid for the realization of the joint police facility. State Secretary Bijleveld (Kingdom Relations) and minister Ter Horst (Interior) reached an agreement on this issue.
Within the scope of the joint facility the new police forces of Curaçao and St. Maarten and the force for Bonaire, Saba and St. Eustatius will cooperate to fight organized and cross-border crime. The facility is also intended to provide operational support.
In each of the new forces there will be a special unit for fighting organized and cross-border crime. These three units work closely together. Seeing that, within the frameworks of the police consensus kingdom act, a solid foundation has been laid, there is full trust that in a next political consultation in February the i’s can be dotted and the t’s can be crossed. To guarantee action against organized and cross-border crime it was decided in previous consultations to extend the already existing and successful cooperation within the RST, i.e. Investigation Cooperation Team, by two years. Only when the forces and the joint police facility operate sufficiently, from a point of view of quality, can the tasks of the RST be taken over.
In the consultations another important step was taken in the progress of the political reforms in the Kingdom. State Secretary Bijleveld reached agreement with her discussion partners on the answering of the questions of the Dutch Lower Chamber, the Parliament of the Netherlands Antilles and the Parliament of Aruba within the scope of the parliamentary discussion of the kingdom laws regarding police, justice and financial supervision. Agreement is required as consensus kingdom laws are involved. This has cleared the way for the three parliaments for consideration of the laws at an early date.
Further, the existing cooperation between the Netherlands and the Netherlands Antilles will be continued under the heading Netherlands Antilles Security Plan until 2012 at the latest. It has been agreed to apply a stricter regimen to the submission and execution of projects. The financing of projects is conducted through the development fund for the Netherlands Antilles (USONA).