Click to see full image at Belga

The Royal Palace of Laeken was nominated third in a list of ugliest buildings of Belgium. Groep Jan Stallaert, a building/demolishing company, organised the contest in which people could nominate the ugliest buildings in Belgium. The group would then offer to demolish the winner for free.

The Royal Palace of Laeken came out third in the list. However, the first two nominees are suspected of cheating, so it is still possible the Palace ends up first. The company, however, does realize it is highly unlikely they will be allowed to tear it down.

Check this thread for more info on the Royal domain in Laeken and all buildings there.
Check this article in Dutch for more info about the contest.

LadyLeana Belgian Royals Palaces, Royal Palace of Laeken

 This month’s newsletter focusses on the 1980’s, a decade of economic and social change. The fall of communism shifted into higher gear, with revolutions in Poland, Hungary, China Romania and Czechoslowakia, which resulted the end of the cold war in 1989. Multinationals started relocating their manufacturing processes to Asian countries, and the economy revived after a severe oil crisis.

This was the decade of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, the uprise of the seat belt, the start of MTV, the decade which saw an explosive growth in people having a home computer, the explosion of the Challenger and the assassination of John Lennon. And amidst the nuclear disaster in Chernobyl and the overthrow of various military dictatorships in South America, some of our favourite royals of today were born, fairy tale weddings were celebrated and the deaths of monarchs were mourned.

We hope you enjoy this month’s newsletter.

Zonk, LadyLeana

Newsletter Editors

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LadyLeana The Royal Forums Newsletter

On October 8, the royal family, including Princess Maria Laura, daughter of Princess Astrid, attended the opening of the prestigious “Son of Heaven” exhibition at the Palace of the Fine Arts in Brussels. It is the opening exhibition of the cultural festival Europalia China.

Click to see Belga picture gallery

The King and Queen opened the exhibition in the presence of the Vice President of China, Xi Jinping. Prince Philippe, Princess Mathilde, Princess Astrid, Prince Lorenz, Prince Laurent, Princess Claire and Princess Maria Laura were also present.

The Vice-President is on an official trip to Belgium, and was welcomed to the country by Prince Philippe upon his arrival in Brussels, on October 7. Earlier on Thursday, the Vice President already met the King and Queen during a lunch at the Laeken Palace.

The exhibition shows some very exclusive pieces which have never travelled outside of China before, like a priceless kimono worn by the Chinese emperors. To honour this special gesture from China, the entire royal family turned up for the event. Princess Maria Laura, the eldest daughter of Princess Astrid, probably attended because the exhibition features Chinese artifacts. The young Princess has lived in China for 6 months, and currently studies Oriental languages in Paris.

For more information about the exhibition, please see this website.
For more information and pics from this event, please see this thread.

LadyLeana Belgian Royals Exhibition, King Albert II, Prince Laurent, Prince Lorenz, Prince Philippe, Princess Astrid of Belgium, Princess Claire, Princess Maria Laura, Princess Mathilde, Queen Paola

Click to see Belga gallery

King Albert and Queen Paola attended a mass in honour of the canonisation of Father Damien (Pater Damiaan, Père Damien) in Tremelo, the village where Father Damien was born as Jozef De Veuster. The canonisation is for next week, 11 October, but the village of Tremelo is taking the opportunity to celebrate it’s most known inhabitant all week. Father Damien left for Hawaii on missionary work, and asked to be transferred to Molokai to provide some basic medical and spiritual care for the leprosy on the island. Despite strong opposition within the Church, and even a direct command to leave the place, he remained on Molokai.

The mass was in open air, and attended by a large number of people. Cardinal Danneels lead the service. Apart from the King and Queen, it was also attended by the American ambassador to Belgium, the Belgian Prime Minister and the Flemish Minister-President. A group from Molokai was also present.

Queen Paola, King Albert and a delegation from the Belgian government will also attend the canonisation in Rome next week.

For more information, see this thread.
See here for an article in Dutch.

LadyLeana Belgian Royals Canonisation, King Albert II, Mass, Queen Paola

 Princess Mathilde attended the launch of the European Partnership to fight cancer in the period 2009-2013, today in Brussels, at the invitation of José Manuel Barrosso, the President of the European Commission. She was welcomed to the convention by the Commissioner for Health, Androulla Vassiliou.

Click to see full image at Belga

At the meeting, the Princess gave a speech, in which she emphasised that cancer is a widespread disease, which is very difficult to fight, but “we should not forget that it can very often be beaten.” She also proudly talked about the steps Belgium has already taken to coordinate cancer research, prevention and treatment better. She repeated that prevention and screening are the key to fighting cancer, as many types of cancer, different though they all are, can be more easily cured when discovered in an early stage.

She stressed that clinical research is vital to improve treatments, but that there should also be attention for psychological support for cancer patients, who often feel alone, despite all the attention given to them by family, friends and medical staff. The Princess also talked about her visit to a paediatric oncological institute earlier this year. She said: “I was deeply moved by this visit. I met very sick children, but they gave me a lesson on how to be brave: never to give up hope despite the burden of illness which is weighing heavily on their young shoulders.”

Click to see full image at Belga

At the same time, Princess Astrid visited a cancer hospital in Oostduinkerke. She was greeted by enthousiastic crowds. At the center, she took the time to talkt and listen to the patients, while she was guided by the doctors. Oostduinkerke being one of the places where shrimp is still collected on horseback, the Princess also met with some traditional shrimp fishermen. 

For a thread on Princess Mathilde’s current events, see here.
The speech can be found here.

For a thread on Princess Astrid’s current events, see here.

LadyLeana Belgian Royals Cancer, Health, Princess Astrid of Belgium, Princess Mathilde

It hasn’t been a good summer for King Albert’s image. After all the controversy surrounding the acquisition of a new yacht, registering it in Italy and avoiding to pay taxes to both the Belgian and the Italian government by registering the yacht as a military vessel, the finances of King Albert II of Belgium have again come under severe criticism.

Royalty watcher Kathy Pauwels had the opportunity to see papers stating that the King bought two luxury apartments and three garages in the city of Ostend, for a total of between 1.5 and 2 million euros. According to several sources, the apartments, for a total of 500 m², were bought as an investment, and the King will not use them personally, as securing an apartment building is too difficult and his safety cannot be ensured.

This spikes again the mockery of the King’s call for less materialism early in the year. It seems that the King’s behaviour stands in contrast with his words. Other people say that the King is giving the good example, letting the money roll in times of economic hardship to get the economy going again.

From TRF Avatar Gallery

In Ostend, however, people are generally happy with the King’s investment, as the apartments are part of a new complex which still has to be built, so the investment is appreciated. They are also proud that the King has chosen to reconnect to the city near the sea, which was often called the Queen of sea cities in the past, and which has a strong royal history.

However, it is very likely that the King did not choose this investment himself, but entrusted his fortune to an investment company. Several royalty watchers say that the King is starting to provide for his retirement through these investments.

See here for an article in French and Dutch.

LadyLeana Belgian Royals Finances, King Albert II

Click to see the article

Today Princess Mathilde and her Dutch colleague, Princess Maxima, officially opened the new Museum M, the renovated city museum of Leuven, one of the oldest cities in the Low Countries, which hosts one of the oldest universities of Europe. The Princesses, whose names start with an M, like the name of the museum, took the time to talk to the people who had turned up to greet them. As usual when they are together, they seemed to have a lot of fun while cutting the ribbon to declare the museum opened.

When they were greeting the crowds, three Flemish extremists started shouting anti-Belgian slogans. They were instantly removed by the police and arrested.

The museum currently hosts a collection of the Flemish Primitive artist Rogier Van der Weyden, one of the most important painters of the Medieval Low Countries. It is located both in old and new buildings.

See here for a thread about the visit.
See here for the website of the museum.
You can find an article of the event in Dutch here.

LadyLeana Belgian Royals, Dutch Royals Princess Mathilde, Princess Máxima

Click to see belga gallery

Yesterday, 09 Sept., Prince Philippe and Princess Mathilde of Belgium and Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden officially opened the exhibition “It’s our Earth 2. From Kyoto to Copenhagen” at Tour & Taxis in Brussels. This is the new edition of the exhibition “It’s our Earth”,  which focused on sustainable energy and development. Because of the great demand, the original exhibition was reopened, under the new name and with new emphasis on the influence of the human presence on the Earth, biodiversity, global warming and other contemporary issues.

The royals want to show their support for the efforts that are being undertaken to make people conscious of the need to change their habits, to counter global warming, climate change, and everything entailed in it.

In the afternoon, Prince Philippe and Princess Victoria attended the conference “Climate and Jobs – The EU’s Global Agenda”. The conference was organized by Sweden. The country is currently President of the Council of the European Union.

For more information on the exhibition, see here.
For pictures and a discussion of the visit, see here and here.

LadyLeana Belgian Royals, Swedish Royals Climate Change, Exhibition, Prince Philippe, Princess Mathilde, Princess Victoria

Prince Laurent causes much controversy again in Belgium with his decision to send his 6-year old daughter Louise, who charmed the media this summer on the National Day, to a French state school.

Click to see article at deredactie.be

This action causes negative comments in whole of Belgium. Not only is the Princess apparently raised without learning Dutch in school, she is now also sent to a French school, not even a Belgian one. According to the article, the Prince could no longer afford the school fee for the private school in Tervuren where the Princess used to go to school, which amounts to about €25.000 per year. The costs of sending her to the Lycée Français would come down to €500 per year.

Both sides of the language barrier think this is a bad move of the royal family. On the Flemish side, people wonder why the Prince would not send his daughter to a school which doesn’t teach her any Dutch, a language which is important in the Brussels job market, as the Princess will have to earn her living later on. In her school in Tervuren, the Princess was also educated in French and English, not in Dutch. On the Francophone side of the language barrier, people wonder why the Prince is sending her to a French school and not a Belgian one. “Aren’t Belgian schools good enough then?” one politician wonders aloud.

The decision is sure to make the Prince less popular in both parts of the country.

See here for an article in Dutch.
See here for a thread discussing Prince Laurent’s current events.

LadyLeana Belgian Royals Education, Prince Laurent, Princess Louise of Belgium

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.

Click to see full image at Zimbio

While the King dutifully ignored the question and his bodyguards tried to get the journalists out of hte 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).

LadyLeana Belgian Royals Finances, King Albert II, Queen Paola, Yachts