Netherlands-Indonesia Union
Netherlands-Indonesia Union Nederlands-Indonesische Unie (Dutch) Uni Indonesia–Belanda (Indonesian) | |||||||||||||
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| 1949–1956 | |||||||||||||
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Flag of the Netherlands and Indonesia | |||||||||||||
Schematic layout of the Netherlands-Indonesia Union | |||||||||||||
| Status | Confederation between the Netherlands and Indonesia | ||||||||||||
| Capital | Amsterdam Jakarta | ||||||||||||
| Secretariat | The Hague | ||||||||||||
| Common languages | Indonesian Dutch Indigenous languages | ||||||||||||
| Religion | Sunni Islam Christianity Hinduism Buddhism | ||||||||||||
| Government | Devolved mixed confederal state under a governing monarch | ||||||||||||
| Hoofd der Unie (Head of the Union) | |||||||||||||
• 1949–1956 | Juliana | ||||||||||||
| Director General | |||||||||||||
• 1949‒1956 | P. J. A. Idenburg | ||||||||||||
| History | |||||||||||||
| 1 January 1949 | |||||||||||||
| 27 December 1949 | |||||||||||||
• NIU Ministers conference | 24 March 1950 | ||||||||||||
• Sukarno dissolves the Union | 17 August 1954 | ||||||||||||
| 15 December 1954 | |||||||||||||
• Union dissolved (in Indonesia) | 15 February 1956 | ||||||||||||
• Union dissolved (in the Netherlands) | February 1956 | ||||||||||||
| Area | |||||||||||||
| 1956 | 2,111,219 km2 (815,146 sq mi) | ||||||||||||
| Population | |||||||||||||
• 1949 estimate | 84,000,000 | ||||||||||||
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The Netherlands-Indonesia Union (Dutch: Nederlands-Indonesische Unie, NIU; Indonesian: Uni Indonesia–Belanda, UIB), also called the two-state solution (Dutch: tweestaten-oplossing) by the Dutch, was a confederal relationship between the Netherlands and Indonesia that existed between 1949 and 1956. Agreed in 1949, it was an attempt by the Netherlands to continue to bind its former colony of the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) to the Netherlands in a confederal manner, at least within the framework of a personal union, even after independence had been granted. However, it was less effective than the French Union of around the same time and less enduring than the British Commonwealth. The loose union failed primarily due to the dispute over Dutch New Guinea and was cancelled by Indonesia in 1954.