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Gumbs: France has to be swayed to amend Franco-Dutch Treaty
by The Daily Herald
Posted: Oct 25, 2005 13:47 UTC
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PHILIPSBURG - St. Maarten Democratic Party (DP) Member of Parliament Marcel Gumbs said on Sunday that the Dutch Government should try to persuade Paris to revisit the Franco-Dutch Treaty.
According to Gumbs, Dutch Minister of Administrative Reform and Kingdom Relations Alexander Pechtold should do “everything to convince” his colleague of Foreign Affairs Minister Ben Bot to invite his French counterpart to revisit the Franco-Dutch Treaty.
It was agreed during the bilateral talks last week between St. Maarten and the Netherlands to withdraw the matter of the treaty from the list of the main lines agreement. Gumbs said Commissioner Sarah Wescott-Williams had “scored big time” by “convincing” the Minister that the treaty did not belong in that agreement.
Gumbs explained that representatives of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and France had signed the Treaty in 1994. The French legislature ratified the document shortly thereafter. For the treaty to be implemented it has to be ratified by the Dutch Parliament. Treaties are dealt with in Kingdom Ordinances (Rijkswetten). This particular treaty concerns the island St. Maarten/St. Martin, which is divided between the Netherlands Antilles and France.
The opinions and remarks of the Antillean Parliament were sought when the Dutch Parliament was handling the Kingdom Ordinance for the Franco-Dutch Treaty. The Parliament of the Netherlands Antilles reported on May 7, 1996, that it had three objections regarding the Treaty: the definition of “foreigner,” the requirement that the conditions for admission be applied cumulatively and that the competences of the committee were considered too far-reaching.
The Island Council of St. Maarten voted unanimously in March 1998 for a motion supporting the objections of the Antillean Parliament and called on the Kingdom Government to renegotiate with France to amend the treaty. The Central Government in the Governing period of 1998-2002 forwarded a letter requesting the Dutch Parliament to cease handling the Franco-Dutch Treaty.
The fact that the treaty only applied to Princess Juliana International Airport and Esperance Airport, not the seaports or the beaches, also became a point of discussion during the first reading of the treaty in the Second Chamber. The Kingdom Government claims implementation of the treaty at the airports is a first step and that it will be expanded to include the seaports.
Members of the Second Chamber claimed that the treaty being applicable only for the airports and not for the seaports created a legal inequality for the visitor who came in via the airport compared to the visitor who came in via the seaport, possibly resulting in lengthy court cases.
“I agree with those members. The treaty is not watertight and implementing it as it is will not serve its purpose. With the increase of boat traffic between the islands, legal and illegal (human smuggling), any measures taken must include the seaports of the island,” Gumbs stated.
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