Click on image to see photo at gva.be

 After 26 years the feud between the d’Udekem d’Acoz family finally has been settled. The feud started 26 years ago when Mathilde’s maternal grandmother, countess Suzanne d’Outryve d’Ydewalle, died. The devision of the family fortune started fierce discussions and disagreements between her sons Henri, Raoul and Patrick, Mathilde’s father.

‘The properties and money have been devided fairly. The lawsuits are over’, count Henri d’Udekem d’Acoz told the Flemish press. He also says that princess Mathilde played an important role in reuniting the family: ‘You can not underestimate her role, but maybe my brother’s death also accelerated things’. In March this year the count also said that the feud had ended, but apparently the financial issues still had to be settled.

 The family announced the end of their disagreements today, just as authors Valerie Lempereur and Jan Van den Berghe introduced their book ‘Mathilde & Co’ to the press. The book is far from positive about the ‘d Udekem d’Acoz family and especially the feud about the inheritance of countess Suzanne. On the Dutch television Valerie Lempereur said that Mathilde’s mother, countess Anne Komorowska, used to be the the ‘boss’ in the household, and has fits of hysteria. The author also claims that it is Mathilde who is the dominant spouse in the marriage.

Marengo Belgian Royals Finances, In-Laws, 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

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, Queen Paola, Yachts

According to politiken.dk, the Danish Royal Family will next year receive an increase in their allowances totalling 1.9 million kroner.

The Queen’s husband Prince Henrik will receive a total budget of 7.1 million kroner, which is a rise of 200,000 klroner from last year, whilst Prince Joachim and Princess Marie will receive an increase of 100,000 kroner, for a total of 3.1 million. Crown Prince Frederik and Crown Princess Mary will have their budget increased by 400,000 kroner, to a total of 17.6 million. Princess Benedikte, sister of Queen Margrethe, will be given a total of 1.1 million kroner, and even Count Ingolf, the cousin of the Queen, will receive an increase of 100,000 kroner.

The former wife of Prince Joachim, Countess Alexandra, will also be given an increased budget of 2.1 million kroner, an increase of 100,000 upon last year. However, as a private citizen, the Countess does not have tax-exempt status and will as such  be paying tax upon it.

For more information, please see this thread.

alex001 Danish Royals Count Ingolf, Countess Alexandra, Finances, Margrethe II, Prince Frederik, Prince Henrik the Prince Consort, Prince Joachim, Princess Benedikte, Princess Marie, Princess Mary

HSH Prince Hans-Adam II, the ruling Prince of Liechtenstein, has angered European Jews through comments he made during an interview published this past Monday in the Liechtensteiner Volksblatt.

The 64-year-old Prince stated that it was the tiny alpine nation’s banking secrecy laws which allowed “some Jews to buy their safety during the Holocaust by using money they had deposited in Liechtenstein or Switzerland.” He also claimed that the laws helped citizens of Europe’s former communist countries, and are still “saving the lives” of those currently living in Third-World countries run by “bloodthirsty dictators.”

The comments were escalated by the current feud between Liechtenstein and their northern neighbour, Germany. Germany has been pressuring the government of Liechtenstein to clamp down on their confidential banking laws that it claims allows wealthy Germans to avoid paying taxes. German authorities last year paid a former LGT Group employee (the Liechtenstein national bank owned by the Princely Family) to obtain the names of Germans who are believed to be tax cheats.

Hans-Adam also fired a shot at Germany themselves, stating: “Germany and many other countries have an unbelievable mess with their state finances…Germany should clean up its own act, and think about its past.”

The Prince’s comments were heavily criticised by the German Central Council of Jews; with their General Secretary Stephan Kramer telling Bild newspaper that “the comments are a mockery of the Holocaust and its survivors.” As Liechtenstein was a mainly neutral player in World War II, Kramer claims it is “historically incorrect” for the Prince’s portrayal of Liechtenstein as the “merciful helper of the Jews” to be voiced.

Kramer ended his interview by commenting on the Prince’s reigning status: “His Highness would be better off retiring.”

Information about the Liechtenstein Princely Family can be found in this forum.

JessRulz Liechtenstein Royals Finances, Germany, Hans-Adam II, Holocaust, LGT Group

Click to see article at lanouvellegazette.be

New controversy hits Belgium while the royals are enjoying their holiday. It has become known that King Albert II of Belgium has bought a new yacht, the “Alpa” of 27 m long, 6.3 m wide, and capable of going up to 30 knots. According to the website of deredactie.be, the yacht is a “Technema 90″, built by the shipyard Rizzardi. Research of Soir Magazine has revealed that the catalogue price of such a boat is no less than 4.6 million euros. The acquisition of the new boat is very remarkable, as the King bought another yacht, the Quatuor, a “Incredibile 45″ of around 1.5 million euros, only two years ago. According to some sources, this boat would be for sale now.

Spokesman Pierre-Emmanuel De Bauw says that the King invests in the yacht because it is the only place where he can truly enjoy some privacy. He also stipulates that the King already bought the yacht last year, but that, since it is a private matter, the Palace did not communicate about it.

The Flemish right-wing party NVA already criticized this latest splurge of the royal family very severely. “So much for more ethics and less materialism, like the King said in his speech for the National Day”, says parliamentary Ben Weyts.

See here for an article in Dutch on deredactie.be and hln.be
See here for an article in French.

LadyLeana Belgian Royals Finances, Yachts

Click here to view the article from the Daily Mail

RJ-H PR was founded in 1997 by Sophie Rhys-Jones, now the Countess of Wessex and wife of Prince Edward, the youngest son of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, and Murray Harkin. For the past eight years, RJ-H PR has been dealing with its share of negative publicity. This started when the Countess of Wessex was recorded by Mazher Mahmood, who is known as the “Fake Sheik”, making less-than-polite remarks about William Hague, saying that his face was “all-wrong”, and Cherie Blair, about whom she said was “worse than her husband”.

Shortly after the unfortunate incident with the Fake Sheik, the Countess was accused of using her royal connections to advance her business interests. After these incidents, the Countess publicly stated that she would end her connection to the public relations firm; however, it has now been revealed by the Daily Mail that the Countess continued to stay involved in the firm. She treated RJ-H PR as if it were “her baby”, and was not prepared to fully leave the company, according to the Daily Mail. Read more…

sgl British Royals Countess of Wessex, Finances, Scandal

From the TRF Avatar gallery

King Albert II of Belgium has offered the Belgian government to help them to pay for the renovation costs necessary to freshen up the Royal Palace in Brussels. The Palace will be used for the European-Asian Summit (ASEM) during the Belgian presidency of the European Union. The Belgian government will pay for the refurbishment of the Palace. Most of the works will be painting and brushing up other details.

King Albert offered to take responsibility for part of the bill, to an amount of 600,000 EUR maximum. The money will come from the Civil List, the “dotation” of the King. The King wants to help the Belgian government, which is currently heading for an immense deficit in the budget, by taking on about a third of the projected costs. He suggested this during an audience with Prime Minister Van Rompuy.

For an article on the subject, see here.

LadyLeana Belgian Royals European Union, Finances, Renovations, Royal Palace (Brussels)

 The Belgian government had appointed a parliamentary commission to discuss the dotation system of the Belgian royals. Every now and then, word came out that the commission wanted to strip Princess Astrid and Prince Laurent of their dotation, but up until now there had been no formal declaration regarding the matter.

From the TRF Avatar Gallery

On July 2, the commission finally came up with a final compromise. The current system of dotations will be kept in place until Prince Philippe succeeds his father as King of the Belgians. From then on, only the reigning monarch and the first in line to the throne will receive a dotation, as well as their spouses and the spouse of a deceased monarch. In reality, this means that of all Prince Philippe’s children, only Princess Elisabeth will receive a dotation from the moment that she is a legal adult. The dotation is, however, bound to certain rules. Members of the Royal Family who receive a dotation may not hold any commercial or other paying  position. This rule applies already to those who currently receive a dotation.

From the TRF Avatar Gallery

From the TRF Avatar Gallery

Princess Astrid and Prince Laurent, who are each currently receiving a dotation of over 300.000 EUR a year, will not lose their dotation, not even when their brother becomes King. The commission decided to would be unfair to them to sustain them for so long, and then suddenly take a way their income. They will remain in the old system for life.

The commission also decided that the costs and expenses of the Royal Family must be published each year. This will aid the transparency of the costs of the Royal family. This was not only the wish of the current government, but also of the King himself. After there have been many criticisms of the misty finances of the Belgian court, the King has urged the government to do something about it, so as to avoid further criticism.

For a discussion of the Belgian royals and their finances, see this thread.
For an article about the matter, see here (Dutch).

LadyLeana Belgian Royals Finances, Government, Prince Laurent, Princess Astrid of Belgium, Princess Elisabeth

From the TRF avatar collection

 Documents have been released that show that Sophie Rhys-Jones, the Countess of Wessex, has paid only £5000 of the £1.7 million owed to creditors by her former public relations firm, according to a recent report in The Sun.

Liquidators will officially close R-JH Public Relations by the end of this month. The firm owed £30,000 to HM Revenue and Customs, which will be written off. All outstanding debts will be written off and the firm, which was established in 1997 will be closed.

Understandably, many of the small business owners who were owed money by the PR firm are very upset that they will never be able to collect. Joe O’Dwyer, whose office supply company was owed £958, told The Sun that “they were always late paying bills. It’s a disgrace that so little money was paid out to creditors”. Another creditor put it more bluntly when he said that “there is a tendency to go all misty-eyed because you’re dealing with royalty and believe that makes a client different-but clearly you have to be hard nosed and business-like”.

In 2001, the Countess was accused of using her royal connections to gain lucrative contracts. After this news broke, the Countess kept a lower profile in the firm.

To read about, and to discuss the Countess of Wessex, please visit this thread.

sgl British Royals Countess of Wessex, Finances