The Sec­ond Chamber of the Dutch Parliament on Tuesday ad­opted the motion about establishing a realistic so­cial minimum for Bonaire, St. Eustatius and Saba of Member of Parliament (MP) Jorien Wuite of the Democratic Party D66 with broad support.

Wuite presented the mo­tion, co-signed by Don Ced­er of the ChristianUnion and Sylvana Simons of the BIJ1 party, during a so-called two-minute debate last Thursday where Min­ister for Poverty Policy, Participation and Pensions Carola Schouten and State Secretary for Kingdom Re­lations and Digitisation Al­exandra van Huffelen were present.

Wuite’s motion asked gov­ernment to inform the Sec­ond Chamber in a timely manner about the findings of the soon to-be-estab­lished committee that will review the social minimum.

The motion also asked for a government reaction to the findings, to indicate the different scenarios and give a timeframe as to the implementation of a realis­tic social minimum for the Caribbean Netherlands. Thirteen parties in the Sec­ond Chamber, one group and two individual MPs supported Wuite’s motion, representing a broad ma­jority. Minister Schouten did not object to the mo­tion during the debate last week. She said that she had already promised Parlia­ment that the social mini­mum committee would be installed per March 1 and that it remained her inten­tion to realise a social mini­mum for the Caribbean Netherlands as soon as pos­sible.

A second motion, sub­mitted last Thursday by Simons, was not voted on. Simons on Tuesday asked that her motion, in which she asked government to further increase the social allowances in the Caribbe­an Netherlands in 2023 to a realistic social minimum, be withdrawn.

During last week’s de­bate, Simons compliment­ed Minister Schouten for raising the legal minimum wage and the social allow­ances on the islands per January 1, but said that this was not enough. Simons did not state a reason why she retracted her motion.

The Daily Herald.