Dutch Empire lost a number of its colonial possessions and trade monopolies to the British Empire. Nevertheless, major portions of the empire survived until the advent of global decolonisation following World War II (1939–1945), namely the East Indies (Indonesia) and Dutch Guiana (Surinam). Three former colonial territories in the West Indies islands around the Caribbean Sea—Aruba, Curaçao, and Sint Maarten—remain as constituent countries represented within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The territories that would later form the Dutch Republic began as a loose federation known as the Seventeen Provinces, which Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and (as "Carlos I") King of Spain,
French Guiana and the European Space Agency (ESA). In the late 1970s and early 1980s, several thousand Hmong refugees from Laos immigrated to French Guiana, fleeing displacement after United States involvement in the Vietnam War. Fully integrated in the French central state in the 21st century, Guiana is a part of the European Union, and its official currency is the euro. The region has the highest nominal GDP per capita in South America. A large part of Guiana's economy derives from jobs and businesses associated with the presence of the Guiana Space Centre, now the European Space Agency's primary launch site near