King Willem-Alexander visits Denmark and Norway (12-14 November 2024)

King Willem-Alexander will visit Denmark and Norway next month in the context of the development of the hydrogen market in North-Western Europe. King Frederik and Crown prince Haakon will participate in some of the events.

HM the King of the Netherlands on a working visit to Denmark

HM King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands will visit on 11-12 November 2024 Copenhagen together with a Dutch business delegation. HM The King will participate in parts of the programme, which aims to strengthen cooperation between the Netherlands, Denmark and Norway within hydrogen technology and future energy systems.

As part of a working visit to Denmark and Norway on 12-14 November 2024 King Willem-Alexander will visit Copenhagen. The purpose of the working visit is to expand cooperation between the Netherlands and Denmark and Norway on hydrogen. Prior to the working visit, the royal couple will host a private dinner with King Willem-Alexander in Frederik VIII's Palace at Amalienborg on 11 November.

polyesco said:

HM the King of the Netherlands on a working visit to Denmark

HM King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands will visit on 11-12 November 2024 Copenhagen together with a Dutch business delegation. HM The King will participate in parts of the programme, which aims to strengthen cooperation between the Netherlands, Denmark and Norway within hydrogen technology and future energy systems.

As part of a working visit to Denmark and Norway on 12-14 November 2024 King Willem-Alexander will visit Copenhagen. The purpose of the working visit is to expand cooperation between the Netherlands and Denmark and Norway on hydrogen. Prior to the working visit, the royal couple will host a private dinner with King Willem-Alexander in Frederik VIII's Palace at Amalienborg on 11 November.

H.M. Kongen af Nederlandene på arbejdsbesøg i Danmark

H.M. Kong Willem-Alexander af Nederlandene besøger den 11.-12. november 2024 København sammen med en nederlandsk erhvervsdelegation. H.M. Kongen vil deltage i dele af programmet, der har...

www.kongehuset.dk

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Great! Looking forward to seeing King Frederik and King Willem Alexander together!

If it's a private dinner, will they release pictures? Will his godmother queen Margrethe also be present?

I assume in Norway he will also be received by the Norwegian royal family.

Somebody said:

If it's a private dinner, will they release pictures? Will his godmother queen Margrethe also be present?

I assume in Norway he will also be received by the Norwegian royal family.

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Yes, here is his full program. In Norway, Haakon will be present for some of the program.

I remember a previous visit from Victoria and Daniel of Sweden, they released a picture from their private dinner. Hopefully.

This is about the North Sea being turned into a gigantic off-shore power-plant for northern and central Europe over the coming decades.
Norway already has experience in and have build generators based on tidal-energy. These plants are expected to be expanded using money from the oil and gas industry.
Denmark incidentally is the biggest producer of oil and gas in EU after Brexit. But we too are in the process of building hundreds of huge windmills in the North Sea. The Netherlands are doing the same, but their coastline is shorter. DK having a coastline of more than 7.000 km.
DK alone, at our current capacity, at times produce enough surplus energy to supply at least a couple of states in Germany. That is very much planned to be increased massively in the future. Thanks to Putin forcing EU to become energy-independent overnight. (We are not quite there yet though. Russian gas is still being transported via pipelines, going through Ukraine to certain countries within EU, who again quietly distribute some of it to other EU countries.)
However, as we all know the wind doesn't blow every day, so it's a good thing to have surplus energy stored in some way. Also when the wind blows a lot, there is a lot of surplus energy and if we can't distribute it, it's lost.
So energy from tidal plants or windmills needs to be stored. But how to do that?
And we are at the edge of development in DK and I believe in Norway and the Netherlands as well. One of the ideas is to store the surplus energy in water reservoirs under the seabed or on land, heating up these reservoirs or put the under pressure and when needed tab the surplus energy and distribute them into the EU electrical grid. That's the gist of it, at least,. Because I must confess I haven't gotten that much into the specific details and there are still a number of hurdles to overcome.
One of the major hurdles is at the Danish-German border. Because the power-lines south of the border are simply not geared to transport the massive amount of electricity we can produce (sometimes already now) further south. So Germany needs to may some serious investments in increasing the capacity of their power-lines. Something the Czechs and the Poles also would very much like, thank you! Not least Poland that is rapidly becoming one of the factories of EU along with countries like Romania. Both of them needing huge amount of safe, uninterrupted energy.
In the meantime countries like France are building nuclear plants like possessed! That energy also needs to be distributed into the EU energy-grid.

So CP Haakon and Kings Frederik and WA and their delegations will have plenty to talk about!

Program in Denmark
Program for H.M. Kongen af Nederlandenes arbejdsbesøg i Danmark

From BilledBladet's live blog
"During his visit to Denmark, the Dutch king, King Willem-Alexander, lives quite close to the royal family.
During the visit, King Willem-Alexander lives in the guest section of Christian VIII's Palace at Amalienborg, which is right next to the royal couple's palace, Frederik VIII's Palace.
King Willem-Alexander just strolled across Amalienborg Palace Square from Christian VIII's Palace to Frederik VIII's Palace, where King Frederik and Queen Mary invite to a private dinner.
It was King Frederik himself who welcomed the King of the Netherlands when he arrived at Frederik VIII's Palace at Amalienborg. "

I look forward to this, partly because they are personal friends, so this should be a merry visit.
But also because AFAIK this is the first time they are hosting a head of state at Amalienborg and also the first time they are having a head of state to (albeit private) dinner at Amalienborg in their capacity as the Regent Couple.
I'd like to see if they begin to do things differently.

I don't think King WA would mind crashing at FX&QM's place after the dinner, if he hadn't a staff of his own with him.

The programme has started in in Lyngby this morning, November 12:


** Pic 1 ** Pic 2 ** Pic 3 ** rex gallery ** gettyimages gallery **

Some great photos so far.
You can see the friendship.

Frederik's speech today in English

from the DRF

Great photos! I love the close personal friendships the continental royals share! Something fostered over the years as heirs and now continues to grow as the heirs are becoming monarchs.

Here are some more photos/videos of the events:

So the venerable Ulrik Ulriksen from BB was the only journalist present when King WA strolled across the square - and used the wrong form of address BTW, which is very much mentioned in the article. But even seasoned reporters can make a mistake.

And I find it typical and telling of both the relationship and the fairly laid back approach the two monarchs and monarchies have that it seems both natural and right that the Dutch King simply walks over for a dinner with old friends. Where other heads of states may have driven with full escort.

Muhler said:

I look forward to this, partly because they are personal friends, so this should be a merry visit.
But also because AFAIK this is the first time they are hosting a head of state at Amalienborg and also the first time they are having a head of state to (albeit private) dinner at Amalienborg in their capacity as the Regent Couple.
I'd like to see if they begin to do things differently.

I don't think King WA would mind crashing at FX&QM's place after the dinner, if he hadn't a staff of his own with him.

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Are they friends? I am not so sure about that. Frederik and Mary invited nearly every crown princely couple to be godparent of one of their children - except WA and Máxima. I am sure they do not mind each other but this alone shows that they perhaps are not very close. At least not as close as the Danish king and queen are with all other crown princes/ monarchs of their generation. And that is perfectly fine of course, you can’t be friends with everybody.

Marengo said:

Are they friends? I am not so sure about that. Frederik and Mary invited nearly every crown princely couple to be godparent of one of their children - except WA and Máxima. I am sure they do not mind each other but this alone shows that they perhaps are not very close. At least not as close as the Danish king and queen are with all other crown princes/ monarchs of their generation. And that is perfectly fine of course, you can’t be friends with everybody.

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Well, their children appears to be friends as Christian and Alexia has been appearing together performing on a video, IIRC with Isabella in the background. So I think it's safe to say their parents are on pretty good terms.

Marengo said:

Are they friends? I am not so sure about that. Frederik and Mary invited nearly every crown princely couple to be godparent of one of their children - except WA and Máxima. I am sure they do not mind each other but this alone shows that they perhaps are not very close. At least not as close as the Danish king and queen are with all other crown princes/ monarchs of their generation. And that is perfectly fine of course, you can’t be friends with everybody.

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But then for some reason King Willem-Alexander gave bot Frederik and Mary the highest dutch order which usually is not given to Heirs and certainly not to spouses of Heirs. He did that not with other Heirs and the spanish Queen still hasn't got it.

Marengo said:

Are they friends? I am not so sure about that. Frederik and Mary invited nearly every crown princely couple to be godparent of one of their children - except WA and Máxima. I am sure they do not mind each other but this alone shows that they perhaps are not very close. At least not as close as the Danish king and queen are with all other crown princes/ monarchs of their generation. And that is perfectly fine of course, you can’t be friends with everybody.

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Frederik and Willem-Alexander seem to be close and I think they are friends.
They have also known each other for several years and their mothers are friends.
Margrethe II is also godmother of King Willem-Alexander.
Mary and Máxima also seem to be close and friends.

Muhler said:

Well, their children appears to be friends as Christian and Alexia has been appearing together performing on a video, IIRC with Isabella in the background. So I think it's safe to say their parents are on pretty good terms.

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Also, when M&F made an official visit a couple of years ago while still the CP Couple they stayed as guests at the palace and you could see their closeness at the events they had together. Guaging closeness by who is or is not a godparent is not, imo, an indication of relationship status. I see some RFs have godparents that are obviously barely acquainted and denote more formal courtesy than actual friendship. Just by looking at the interactions between the Danish and Dutch monarchs and spouses, it is obvious they are more than just peers... that they share bonds of actual friendship.

King Willem-Alexander has arrived in Norway and began his programme at the Northern Lights facility in Øygarden this morning, November 13:


** tt.se gallery ** gettyimages gallery **

Will King Willem-Alexander be with the Norwegian Royal Family?

Yes, Haakon is expected to join Willem-Alexander for a part of the program.

Blog Real said:

Will King Willem-Alexander be with the Norwegian Royal Family?

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Yes, with Haakon. Here is the program from the NRF
14.11.2024 Hystar
His Royal Highness The Crown Prince accompanies His Majesty King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands on a visit to Norwegian electrolyser company Hystar at Høvik in Oslo (09:00).

14.11.2024 Decarbonisation of the maritime sector
His Royal Highness The Crown Prince accompanies His Majesty King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands on a visit to Oslo City Hall and a roundtable discussion on the role of hydrogen and hydrogen derivatives in the decarbonisation of the maritime sector (11:00).