Much Ado About … Travel Costs

The total sum of air travel costs of King Philippe and Queen Mathilde has been critisized in Belgian parliament. In 2015 the ministery of Defence has paid 143.138 euro for 26 flights. An MP for the seperatist party ‘Vlaams Belang’ asked the minister for a specification of the costs. She pointed out that the king and queen already receive more than 11 million euro per year already.

The Belgian king is not allowed to fly in a normal airline flights. He has to use planes of the Belgian air force, for public and private travel. In 2015 the Belgian airforce was used 26 times. A flight costed on average 5505 euro. The minister refused to comment about which filights were private and which ones were not. The MP of ‘Vlaams Belang’ concluded that only 2 of the 26 flights were for official occassions and that the other 24 flights were private. This estimate is based on the fact that there were only two outgoing state visits in 2015. The demagogic MP obviously forgets that the royals travel abroad for official duties more often.
The specified costs were the following:

7x to Switzerland 28.773 euro
5x to France: 20.830 euro
2x to Spain: 12.425 euro
2x to Italy: 4.935 euro
2x to Austria: 10.491 euro
1x to Saudi Arabia: 20.174 euro
1x to Denmark: 5.104 euro
1x to Germany: 9.488 euro
1x to the United Kingdom: 2.350 euro
1x to Poland: 6.038 euro
1x to Sweden: 6.138 euro

Filed under Belgium
Tagged Finances, King Philippe of the Belgians, Queen Mathilde of the Belgians.