The President of the Parliament of Curaçao, Fergino Brownbill, has sent a clear and blunt warning to Aruba: “Keep in mind that for several years Curaçao itself has been trying to get out of the Board of Financial Supervision (CFT) and is not succeeding.” The constitutional and financial debate between the islands of the Kingdom and the Netherlands remains central, especially now that Aruba is under pressure to accept the Consensus Kingdom Act HOFA (Houdbare Overheidsfinanciën Aruba). From Willemstad, the signals are of concern regarding how this supervision can tie down a country’s autonomy for the long term.
The Crucial Difference Between Curaçao and Aruba
According to structural analysis, the only difference in the current status between the islands is the legal route through which the Netherlands has access to financial management. While Curaçao and Sint Maarten are supervised based on the Kingdom Act on Financial Supervision (Rft), Aruba is facing the implementation of the Kingdom Act HOFA.
Curaçao did not pass a landsverordening (national ordinance/law) to structurally surrender its financial management to the Netherlands; they deal with it via the Rft. This means that supervision is there via the Raft framework, but Curaçao itself continues to make decisions on its finances through its own national laws (landsverordeningen).
In this context, the highest authority of the Parliament of Curaçao explained the current supervision situation: From The Hague’s point of view, the main argument for imposing this supervision is that financial management in Aruba is not seen as sufficiently solid. For that reason, the Netherlands is rigidly pushing to structurally introduce the CFT in Aruba via a Kingdom Act, apparently.
A Mirror for Aruba’s Future
In the latest official interactions between the parliaments of the islands, Curaçao shared its real-world experience with Aruba, serving as a mirror for the island’s financial future.
The message from Curaçao comes at a crucial moment where the decision on HOFA could define Aruba’s economic course for the coming decades. While Curaçao is working hard internally to demonstrate solidity and thus force the structural dissolution of the CFT, the warning to Aruba remains firm: entering a Kingdom Act supervision framework is easy, but getting out of it is a long, tedious road that depends heavily on the political will of the Netherlands.