By Suzanne Koelega
THE HAGUE--The Dutch Parliament's Second Chamber is disregarding the urgent appeal of the Parliaments of Aruba, Curaçao and St. Maarten to postpone handling the Visa Law and the Law on Dutch Citizenship until after the Dutch elections on September 12.
Chairpersons Paul Croes (Aruba), Ivar Asjes (Curaçao) and Gracita Arrindell (St. Maarten) made their appeal in an April 29 letter to the Second Chamber. However, the Second Chamber's Permanent Committees for Interior Affairs and Foreign Affairs decided in separate meetings on Thursday that they would not declare either law proposal controversial. This means that the handling of these law proposals can go ahead regardless of the pending elections.
A majority in the Committee for Foreign Affairs, comprising the conservative VVD party, Labour Party PvdA and Christian Democratic Party CDA, among others, not only ignored the wish of the overseas Parliaments to hold off on handling the Visa Law (Rijksvisumwet), but also the protests of the Party for Freedom PVV, Socialist Party (SP), the democratic D66 party and the Christian Union (CU).
Member of Parliament (MP) Harry van Bommel (SP) was the only one to bring up the letter from the Chairpersons of the overseas Parliaments. He defended their plea and proposed declaring the Visa Law controversial. "The request of the Parliaments of Aruba, Curaçao and St. Maarten should weigh heavily in our decision," he said.
In the Interior Affairs Committee D66, CU and the green left party GroenLinks tried to delay the handling of the Law on Dutch citizenship (Rijkswet op het Nederlanderschap) until after the September 12 elections, but to no avail, because a majority didn't want to declare this law proposal controversial.
The Parliaments of Aruba, Curaçao and St. Maarten are objecting to the two laws in question. The Visa Law would curb the autonomy of the countries too much and hurt trade relations with countries in the region.
The Law on Dutch Citizenship would make it no longer possible for Dutch citizens to have dual nationality. The PVV has been a fervent proponent of this law proposal, because the party doesn't want naturalised immigrants to have two passports.
"This law proposal brings great uncertainty for one million Dutch citizens in The Netherlands and a group abroad, as to whether they will be able to hold on to their other passport. This is a vital matter for them," said MP Martijn van Dam (PvdA), who asked to declare the law proposal controversial.
"There is much fuss over this law proposal. Let's leave it to the new Second Chamber," said Sadet Karabulut (SP), who also wanted it declared controversial. The Committee for Interior Affairs decided to arrange a couple of hearings before handling the law.
A plea by MP Cynthia Ortega-Martijn to declare controversial the law proposal to amend the Constitution to formalise the public entity status of Bonaire, St. Eustatius and Saba proved futile as well. "This goes against the agreement that we have made to hold off on a final status until the evaluation in 2015," she said.
"We should give the islands a chance to grow into adults. Besides, the people of the islands should be allowed to express themselves before we take a definite decision on their constitutional status in the Constitution," said Ortega-Martijn in an invited comment. According to her, this is another prime example of why the islands should have a say in the Second Chamber. "We have to listen more to them."
Parliament will take a final vote on the list of controversial law proposals and initiatives sometime next week.
BlackBurn Rovers Spending review 2010 Antigua & Barbuda Christina Aguilera BBC Egypt
No comments:
Post a Comment