2009 Year-end speech by the Governor for Netherlands Antilles Broadcasting Service

Dear listeners,

The year is drawing to a close. At this time of year, more than any other, we seek out our families and friends so that we can celebrate this special period together. We look back over the past year to see whether it has brought us what we had hoped, and we think about our expectations for the year ahead. What are our hopes and resolutions?

Many wishes, thoughts and expectations are personal in nature and we share them only with one or two people, or we keep them entirely to ourselves. But there are also events that concern us all. Events that we each have our own ideas about.

The constitutional changes facing the islands of the Netherlands Antilles are an excellent example. This autumn it was agreed that the Netherlands Antilles would cease to exist as a political entity on 10 October 2010. Curaçao and Sint Maarten will become countries within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, while the other islands will be closely integrated into the Netherlands.

Looking back at the history of the Netherlands Antilles, we have to conclude that the country has not performed the way people had hoped in the early 1950s.

Of course, it is not the task of a state entity to perform; it is above all people who have to perform, not structures. And we can say that, on the whole, there has been too little cooperation between the islands of the Netherlands Antilles to create a feeling that we all belong to the same country. The islands remained exactly that – islands. And the sense of being a country did not fully mature.

Looking to the near future, we can see how the islands of the Antilles are each charting a new course. They will have to operate within a new constitutional framework. The path that each island is following offers new opportunities for development. And builds expectations among its inhabitants.

It is up to those governing the new countries of Curaçao and Sint Maarten, and the islands of Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba to translate these expectations into tangible progress for the people of those islands.

Although our paths are diverging, all five islands will continue to be part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Whether we live on the islands that are to become Dutch municipalities, or on those that are to become autonomous countries, the Queen will continue to be our head of state and we will continue to share the same nationality. But the changes to the Kingdom’s structure call for a new vision of the relations and cooperation between the different parts of the Kingdom.

I am therefore delighted that the State Secretary for the Interior and Kingdom Relations has begun organising a series of symposia on the Kingdom’s future. At these meetings, one of which will be held on Curaçao, participants will examine what binds us together as a Kingdom and the values we share. Not only today, but also in the future.

For that is what this time of year is all about. We can spend a lot of time looking back at the past, but what really matters are the positive expectations we hold for the future. This applies to all of you in your own lives. And equally to those in government, with respect to all the islands’ citizens.

I wish you a blessed Christmas and a prosperous and healthy 2010.

Thank you.