Belgian Yacht Controversy Continues

The controversy surrounding the purchase of a new yacht by the Belgian King and Queen continues. Public opinion cries out injustice about this luxury expense in times of economic hardship, as this purchase shook up especially the southern part of the country.

RTBF journalist Cristophe Deborsu, the same journalist who asked former Prime Minister Yves Leterme to sing the Brabançonne but got the Marseillaise in return, pulled another stunt interview. During the celebrations of the golden wedding anniversary of the King and Queen on 30 August, he approached the King and Queen, accompanied by a camera crew, and simply asked them if they felt affected by the controversy surrounding their yacht purchase.

While the King dutifully ignored the question and his bodyguards tried to get the journalists out of the way, the Queen responded to the question anyway. “Of course we feel the criticism is not fair. We’ve always had a yacht, since our marriage, so for the past 50 years. We started out with a small boat of about 2  – no 5 meter”.

By then, the bodyguards had succeeded in getting the journalists out of the way. Palace spokesman Pierre-Emmanuel De Bauw said in a statement that he was very dissapointed with the RTBF journalist. He stated that it had been explicitly forbidden to pose any questions to the King and Queen while microphones were in front of them, as is standard following Belgian protocol rules. This breach of protocol, according to the spokesman, is clearly a problem of deontology.

For an article, see here (French).

Filed under Belgium
Tagged Albert II of Belgium, Finances, Media, Public Opinion, Queen Paola of Belgium, Yachts.

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