Big Brother For Dutch Royals?

According to a new proposal from the Netherlands’ largest opposition party SP (Socialist Party), the members of the royal family have to explain precisely how they spend their days and what they are doing with the 119 million Euros that the royal family costs each year.

Newspaper ‘De Telegraaf’ reports that SP parlamentarian Ronald van Raak will ask the minister of internal affairs, Guusje Ter Horst for a annual report on the royal family. The former Maoist party thinks it is high time for queen Beatrix, prince Willem-Alexander and princess Máxima to explain how they spend their money. He also thinks that the royal family should explain what they do all day: ‘which visits they paid, which heads of state they spoke, which schools and hospitals they visited and where they travelled to’, according to Van Raak.

The SP emphasizes that their plea for more openess should not been seen as an attack on the royal house. ‘I think the Queen does an awful lot, only much of it stays hidden’, according to Van Raak. He also says that all the drama around the travelling costs of the royal family, the maintenance costs of of the ‘Groene Draeck’ (sail boat of the Queen) was caused by a lack of openess. ‘It doesn’t hurt to tell what you are doing, it suits a modern monarchy’, claims Van Raak.

This year for the first time the total costs of the monarchy became clear and were presented in one budget to parlament. The total costs of the royal house were 119 million Euros. The largest sums are payed for security (40 million euros) and the renovation of the palaces (43 million Euros). The Queen, prince Willem-Alexander and Princess Máxima together received a sum of 6,1 million Euros.

A few months ago the prince of Orange commented that he and his mother welcomed more clatrity about the financial dealings and that they were happy that a clear budget would be presented. However it remains to be seen what they think of explaining every minute of their time to parlamentarians. It is however very unlikely that the proposal of the SP will receive much support from the other parties in parliament though.

Read the article in Dutch here.

Filed under The Netherlands
Tagged Finances, King Willem-Alexander of The Netherlands, Parliament, Princess Beatrix of the Netherlands, Queen Máxima of the Netherlands.