Last night Queen Beatrix attended the opening of the annual Holland Dance festival at the Lucent Dance Theater in The Hague. The queen was accompanied by the prince of Orange, princess Máxima, prince Constantijn and Princess Laurentien. Princess Máxima wore the grey Natan dress that she first wore during Prinsjesdag in 2004 while princess Laurentien looked smashing in a green creation.

Click on image to see photo at PPE

Click on image to see photo at PPE

It is widely known that queen Beatrix is fond of any form of dance, as is her sister Margriet. The younger generation as also hooked, the daughters of the crown prince attend ballet classes and recently princess Máxima took her daughters to a (private) rehearsal of the National ballet in Amsterdam.

During the festival, the 50th annversairy of the Holland Dans Theater will be celebrated. During this 12th edition of the dance festival over 70 performances and 100 workshops will be given. The festival will end on November 15th with a parade of 1200 amateur dancers.

More information about the festival can be found here.

Marengo Dutch Royals Prince Constantijn, Prince of Orange, Prince Willem-Alexander, Princess Laurentien, Princess Máxima, Queen Beatrix, Royal Ballet

 The image of the much troubled building project of the holiday house of the prince of Orange and his wife in Mozambique will be dealt with by professionals. In The Netherlands there has been a lot of commotion about the project on the Machangulo peninsula in Mozambique. There were various claims of corruption, embazzlement, intimidation and violance against locals which already caused the prince to start a foundation that deals with the project.

Click on image to see picture at www.eo.nl

After the criticism of the last weeks the project it has been decided that apart from the Government Information Service (RVD), three other spokesmen will be involved with the information about the project from now on. As newspaper ‘Telegraaf‘ reports, the communications advisor Frans van der Grint of the renowed PR agency Hill & Knowlton, has been appointed as spokesman for the Machangulo Trust Office. The Trust office was created this summer to represent the business interests of the Prince in the Machangulo project. “Given the great interest and the many questions from the media, the Machangulo Trust Office thought it was wise to appoint a new communications adviser” commented Van der Grint.

Apart from the foundation, the building project also hired a PR agent for the project in Mozambique. They are busy in hiring another one in The Netherlands too. The Dutch PR agent will be dealing with the Dutch press. The RVD emphasizes that they will be the only ones talking on behalf of the prince of Orange and his wife.

In the mean time, political magazine HP/De Tijd immidiately criticized the choice for the PR firm Hill & Knowlton. In an article in their online edition they list some remarkable earlier assignments of the firm. In 1954 they placed an advertisement in 400 US newspapers, claiming that smoking is not lethal. The article also lists other examples.

The discussion about the holiday house of the prince and princess has been dragging on since July 2008. The public debate in The Netherlands has turned against the project and one negative article after another appears in the Dutch press. It remains to be seen if these spokesmen can change the present mood among the public and the press.

More about the Machangulo project in this thread at the Dutch forum at TRF.

Marengo Dutch Royals Mozambique, Prince of Orange, Prince Willem-Alexander, Princess Máxima, Residences

TRH the Prince of Orange and Princess Máxima have concluded their week-long visit to New York City, in celebration of the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson’s voyage aboard the Half Moon which discovered the city.

Click to see the image at NY400.nl

After their incredibly busy Tuesday and Wednesday schedules, Thursday was a relatively quiet day for the royal couple. The pair had seperate meetings on water management and micro-finance, the Prince and Princess’ pet areas respectively, at the United Nations Headquarters. Prince Willem-Alexander and Princess Máxima then visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where they were shown around the Johannes Vermeer exhibition – Vermeer’s Masterpiece The Milkmaid – by the Met’s curator Walter Liedtke.

The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam has loaned the Met Vermeer’s most famous painting, The Milkmaid, to be apart of the exhibition, while there are also a further five Vermeer pieces on show. Liedtke said that the Prince and Princess showed particular interest in the Vermeer paintings, before they moved on to the New York Stock Exchange, where they were treated to a dinner. At the Stock Exchange, the Prince and Princess were briefed on the economic crisis.

Friday, September 11th, began as a solemn day on the royal couple’s program. Read more…

JessRulz Dutch Royals 9/11, Exhibition, Four Freedom Awards, Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama, Official Visit, President Obama, Prince of Orange, Prince Willem-Alexander, Princess Máxima, United States of America

TRH the Prince of Orange and Princess Máxima have begun their week-long official visit to New York City, in celebration of the 400th anniversary of the founding of New Amsterdam, present-day NYC. Tuesday September 8th was the couple’s first official day in the city (they attended the wedding of Bernardo Guillermo over the weekend), and the first stop was the USS Intrepid, where the Prince and Princess were greeted by Mayor of NYC, Michael Bloomberg, and the US Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Click to see the image at Daylife

Here, speeches were made by the Prince, the Mayor and Mrs Clinton. Prince Willem-Alexander said that, “Arriving in New York is always a great pleasure…because the better you know the Big Apple, the more you love this wonderful city,” before going on to talk about the 1609 voyage of the Half Moon from the Netherlands to New Amsterdam. He also spoke of the values brought to the New World, which are still present in New Yorkers today. “There is no doubt in my mind that New York will emerge from this crisis stronger…New Yorkers are hard-working optimists who have always been able to find new opportunities,” Prince Willem-Alexander said, regarding the current global financial crisis. Following the speeches, Princess Máxima was presented with a glass bowl by Mrs Clinton, and a 21-gun salute took place.

From the Harbour, Prince Willem-Alexander and Princess Máxima flew via helicopter to the oldest military academy in the US, West Point. Read more…

JessRulz Dutch Royals Hillary Clinton, Official Visit, Prince of Orange, Prince Willem-Alexander, Princess Máxima, United States of America

The holiday villa of the prince of Orange in Mozambique is causing more problems than expected by the prince and his wife. As newspaper ‘De Volkskrant’ reported on Saturday, many things went wrong with the building project in nature area Machangulo, on a peninsula in Mozambique. The project now turned into such a mess that the Dutch prime minister J.P. Balkenende advised the prince to move his private investments to a ’safe’ foundation.

Click on image to see picture at vandaag.be

The new foundation, called ‘Stichting Administratiekantoor Machangulo’ (foundation administration office Machangulo) is located at Noordeinde Palace in The Hague.  New problems around the project are now an issue of the foundation, not of the crown prince. Added to that, before taking any serious steps around this project the prince has to ask approval of the members of the foundation and of the prime minister. According to the Government information service (RVD) this comparable to the procedure that government ministers have to follow to secure their business interests.

The project already saw a lot of setbacks. Project developer Dave Dahlmann all of a sudden vanished into thin air after it became clear he had committed fraud in the past.  He did not open separate bank account for the project Machangulo. The millions that were invested by the ‘happy few’ ended up at the bank account of Dahlmann’s 21 year old daughter. It is not clear how much money disappeared and whose money it was. Several investors in the project, among them friends of the prince, didn’t take any risk and immediately sold their share of the project to somebody else. Read more…

Marengo Dutch Royals Mozambique, Prince of Orange, Prince Willem-Alexander, Princess Máxima, Residences

 TRH the Prince of Orange and Princess Máxima have launched legal action of American media outlet Associated Press (AP).

The action comes after AP published several photos of the couple and their three daughters – Princesses Catharina-Amalia, Alexia and Ariane – taken at the luxury Villa La Angostura ski resort in Argentina, where the family is currently holidaying.

The RVD (Government Information Agency) sent a letter to the AP headquarters in New York last Thursday, July 30th, on behalf of the royal couple. Letters were also sent to several Dutch news outlets, including newspaper Trouw and press agency GPD, requesting that the images be removed from their websites. All Dutch outlets involved removed the “illegal” images within 24 hours.

The RVD said that the images taken were in violation of the media code installed by the royal family in 2005, which is an arrangement between the royals and the Dutch media to only photograph the Prince of Orange and his family on official occasions. In exchange, photo sessions will be arranged periodically for the media (the Wassenaar shoot is the latest).

AP has yet to remove the images from their database, stating that “In this case the member of the royal family are public figures in a ski resort outside their own country. The AP considers that it has the right to photograph them as such.” Unless the images are removed, a law suit will begin on August 14th. Follow this issue here.

JessRulz Dutch Royals Legal Matters, Media, Prince of Orange, Prince Willem-Alexander, Princess Máxima

 A trio of blonde-haired, denim-clad little girls frolicked on a Wassenaar beach yesterday, with a protective eye cast over them by their parents. This could describe any normal family, but with a pack of approximately ninety photographers, videographers and reporters watching their every move; it is clear that normal this family is not.

Click to see the image at Royal Blog

The Prince of Orange, Willem-Alexander, and his wife Princess Máxima arranged a photo session with their three daughters – Princesses Catharina-Amalia, Alexia and Ariane – as part of the summer holidays. The scenery of the beautiful empty beach surrounded by sand dunes provided a gorgeous location for the session.

The family arrived through the sand dunes; the elder girls walking ahead of their parents, Ariane on her father’s shoulders. Off came the shoes, before the girls ran ahead to play on the sand with a Dora the Explorer ball Amalia brought with them. The help of Mum and Dad was enlisted when sandcastles needed to be built, with Willem-Alexander given the job of water collector.

Click to see the image at Royal Blog

While the girls played, the Prince and Princess spoke with the reporters present. Amongst other topics, the Koninginnedag accident came up. The pair said that they still thought about the accident, and while their daughters knew what happened, they had been shielded from any images.

Willem-Alexander and Máxima also told reporters that they plan to attend the religious wedding ceremony of the Prince’s first cousin, Bernardo Guillermo, in New York City in September; which happily coincides with the pair’s official trip to the US state to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the Hudson Voyage which founded New Amsterdam (present-day New York).

Click here to view the photo session thread.

JessRulz Dutch Royals Photo Session, Prince of Orange, Prince Willem-Alexander, Princess Alexia of the Netherlands, Princess Ariane, Princess Catharina-Amalia, Princess Máxima

Click on image to see photo at www.dag.nl

 During the television programme Eén Vandaag’ it became clear that a majority of parliament wants that the prince of Orange to quit his position as a member of the supervisory board of the Dutch Bank (DNB). The parties fear that the prince will come in a vulnerable position due to the credit crunch and the parlementairy research commission after the crisis and the role of the Dutch Bank. The programme interviewed members of several political parties about the matter.

According to newspaper NRC Handelsblad, the minister of Finance, Wouter Bos, did not want to comment on the matter today, he did say that the powers of the prince in the board are very limited and directed journalists to the RVD (Goverment Information Service). The RVD emphasizes that the supervisory board of the Dutch bank is not responsible for the actions of the Dutch Bank in areas like the supervision of the Dutch financial sector, neither in the monetairy policies.

Parties like the VVD (liberals), PVV (extreme right), D66 (liberal democrats), GroenLinks (green), SP (socialists) and PvdA (labour) all fear that there will be a discussion about Willem-Alexander’s role when the dealings of the Dutch Bank during the credit crunch, and especially their policy with IceSave, will be researched.

The prince is a member of the supervisory board since 1998, his last reinstatement hapened on 1 June 2006. His term ends on 1 July 2010. According to the RVD his position in the board is happened to prepare him for his future task, he also is a member of the counsil of State, a member of the IOC and chairman of the UN advisory board on water and sanitation.

Marengo Dutch Royals Parliament, Prince of Orange, Prince Willem-Alexander

Click on image to see photo at koninklijkhuis.nl

Click on image to see photo at koninklijkhuis.nl

  Yesterday morning princess Alexia of The Netherlands started her first day in kindergarten. She arrived in the company of her parents, and her older sister princess Amalia at the Bloemcamp school in Wassenaar, where she will start in group 1A.

Her teachers Carla Buijs (monday) and Yvonne van Veen (tuesday-friday) welcomed the princess in the class room, which was decorated with yellow, purple and green kites. Outside the class room, the princess got a place where she could store her new red bagback of ‘Dora the Explorer’, ‘I have received it (as a gift)’, the princess said when teacher Buijs asked her how she got such a nice bagpack. The princess already hoped she would receive a ‘cool’ bagpack for her birthday, and obviously she did. When she pushed the bagpack in the appropriate place she remarked: ‘it is a bit heavy’. After Máxima gave her daughter a red cardigan, which was hung under the bagpack, the princess could enter her classroom.

Click on image to see photo at ANP

Click on image to see photo at parool.nl

On the blackboard it said: ‘Welcome Alexia’, and the little princess chair was next to the teacher and a friend she knew from the playgroup. The little princess looked a bit overwhelmed, and held her mothers hand and later even her fathers finger for a while. Later in the morning the other children in the class would sing to Alexia, a special welcoming ballad, in French and in Dutch. ‘We do that for all new children, or for children who have their birthday’. The song says that every child on earth twinkles like a star, ‘all children know it by heart’, said Carla Buijs.

The princess will only go to kindergarten for two weeks, as the summer vacations will start soon. According to newspaper ‘Telegraaf‘ the reason why princess Alexia did not go to school after the summer holidays was because on that day a lot of children will have their first new school day and their parents were worried that the photographers would frighten their children.

Click here and here for clips of Alexia first day at school.

Marengo Dutch Royals Education, Prince of Orange, Prince Willem-Alexander, Princess Alexia of the Netherlands, Princess Catharina-Amalia, Princess Máxima

 On Saturday June 27th, HRH the Prince of Orange attended the Veterans Day 2009 celebrations in The Hague. He was accompanied by the Dutch Prime Minister, Jan Peter Balkenende.

Click to see the PPE gallery

Upon arriving at the Ridderzaal, the Prince and the Prime Minister met before Balkenende delivered a solemn speech. The party then moved to the Binnenhof; where HRH, PM Balkenende, the Defence Minister (E Van Middelkoop) and the Commander of the Armed Forces, General PJM van Uhm, presented awards veterans and soldiers currently in active service. Among the recipients were sixty soldiers who recently returned to the Netherlands from serving overseas.

A parade through the streets of The Hague also occurred, with veterans marching past the official party on foot, on bicycles and in army trucks. HRH, who holds the ranks of Commodore in the Royal Netherlands Navy Reserves, Commodore in the Royal Netherlands Air Force Reserves and Brigadier General in the Royal Netherlands Army Reserves, saluted the veterans and soldiers who passed.

The Prince of Orange is also the patron of the Dutch Veterans Day Committee. Click here to read more about Willem-Alexander’s current events.

JessRulz Dutch Royals Military, Prime Minister Balkenende, Prince of Orange, Prince Willem-Alexander, Veterans Day