Costs and Finances of the Belgian Royal Family


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Marengo

Marengo

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According to a senator of N-VA party, the Belgian monarchy costs 28 million a year, which is much higher than the dotation the members receive annualy.
Read an article in Dutch about it here.

The dotations add up to 12 million euros annualy but the 'hidden' costs that are placed at other depatments are 16 million euros. The senator also wants to stop the dotation for Prince Laurent and Princess Astrid.

--

Always curious how people keep going after the costs of a monarchy while it is proven that republics are more expensive and 'make' less money than a monarchy. It is all right if people are republican and such, but IMO the argument of 'costs' is falsifying the debate.
 
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It's the zillionth time the costs of the royal family are discussed, it's getting pretty boring :)
Although I don't agree with everything this politician is saying, he has some good ideas.

I think it would be a good idea to raise the dotation to cover all the costs. And not keep costs hidden in other departments, because that's only good for speculation.

I agree with the idea that only the king and the crown prince should get a dotation. But I think it would only be fair to start with that with the grandchildren of the present king. It's not fair to Astrid and Laurent to give them a dotation and then take it away again and tell them to go find a job.
 
Dotations of Members of the Belgian Royal Family under Discussion

Parlament decided yesterday (18 april 2008) that of Phillipe and Mathilde's children only Princess Elisabeth will receive a dotation in the future, the others will have to provide an income themselves. Princess Astrid and Prince Laurent can keep there dotation for now, but a discussion about it will be reopened when the King turns 75 or if he dies before that age.

It seems that no senator actually looked at the 'work'that Astrid, Laurent and Claire do on behalf of Belgium, which is much larger than for example the two younger sons of the Queen of the Netherlands. Cutting allowances willcertainly stop such an involvment.

Senator Lambert also asked for the goverment to give an annual sheet with all the costs of the RF. He claims that this already exists in the Netherlands (which is not tru, but the government is working on it).

An article in Dutch here.
 
Marengo, are these dotations to Princess Astrid and Prince Laurent meant to cover their expenses when they're on royal duty?
 
According to ' Het Laatste Nieuws' the Belgian RF is getting a raise of 5% this year. The budgetted costs are 13.043.000 Euros. Queen Fabiola is getting a raise of 73.000 euros, her dotation is now E 1.5 million a year.

The article in Dutch here.
 
According to newspaper 'Het Laatste Nieuws' the dotation of Prince Laurent will be even more under discussion as the senate started an ad hoc advice group who will take a look at the dotations of the royals. Apparently some dotations will be decreased while others will disappear completely.

And no surprise: the Flemish parties will be proposing this while it is expected that the Walloon parties will block it. Newspaper ' de Morgen' calls it a new dilemma like Brussel-Halle-Vilvoorde, but that is over the top IMO, unless this issue will paralise Belgian politics for the next decade or so (which won' t happen of course).

Article in Dutch here.

And the original article in Dutch of 'De Morgen' here.

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What I don' t understand is why the dotation of Prince Laurent is ' in danger' while they do not mention the one of Princess Astrid (who is in the same position as her brother).
 
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Marengo said:
Parlament decided yesterday (18 april 2008) that of Phillipe and Mathilde's children only Princess Elisabeth will receive a dotation in the future, the others will have to provide an income themselves. Princess Astrid and Prince Laurent can keep there dotation for now, but a discussion about it will be reopened when the King turns 75 or if he dies before that age.
Click to expand...
It seems to be in line with what's happening in the Norwegian royal house, only they're instituting it themselves - and therefore have a lot more power over the proceedings. :ermm:
 
So if Gabriel, Emmanuel and Eleonore do not receive an allowance from the state will they not take part in any royal duties? They will cease to be members of the royal family?
 
I have a feeling that this is a temporary fix for a government that is in trouble, and they are trying to look good, although I suspect that this move will not make them look good in the least.

I don't see the siblings of Elisabeth being cut out entirely, as she will need help with Royal duties when she gets older. Nope, I just don't see this one as having staying power!
 
Perhaps it will also be like in the Netherlands where only the reinging Monachrc and his/her spouse, the former monarch and his/her spouse and the heir and his/her spouse will get an allowance by the State. But the cots of official duties of the other members of the Royal House are covered by the King/Queen.
I think it is fair in the cases of Gabriel, Emmanuel and Eleonore that they know they will not get an allowance from the State. But for Laurent and Astrid it ist not as they had where not prepared for it in the way of their job-choice etc.
 
This might be an instance in which Laurent's frequent bad headlines are causing Parliament to look for a way to ensure that future generations do not cause as many problems -- by forcing them to work.
 
I agree, the most sensible thing for the future is to give the reigning couple and the direct heirs + spouses a dotation, and not the other children of the monrachs. I like how the dutch do it, just give the monarch a bit more and let he pay his relatives.
However I do not think that halfway the game you should change the rules. Astrid and Laurent planned their future, education etc. on the fact that they would be representing the RF and not have a normal job, so if they don' t get any money any more what should they do all of a sudden?
 
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That's what they did in the UK when they shrank the Civil List a few years ago. Mostly it was a reaction against the younger royals, especially the Queen's younger children and their various spouses, but the Civil List was slashed so that long-term recipients like the Kents, Gloucesters, and Princess Alexandra, who had worked hard all their lives and, in the case of the Duke of Gloucester, given up a career to take on public duties, were all of a sudden cut loose. But the Queen is repaying them herself for continuing to take on public duties, so I assume there was some sort of agreement between her senior people and the Government that these junior royals wouldn't be left high and dry after all these years. The same is probably true of the Queen's younger children, who are continuing to perform public duties as they did while they were still on the Civil List. However, it does send a message to people like Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie that they might have to find other ways of supporting themselves when they get out of college. The chances are that they'll have a lot less involvement in royal life than the Queen's cousins did.
 
I think its an interesting situation - I can see why they want to cut back but it is very difficult. If you cut the donation to the longer serving royals, do you increase the Queen/King's to recognised their increased expenses? And surely in doing so you'd eliminate the benefit of making the original cut...
 
'Het Laatste Nieuws' reports that the royal family had 119 private flights in military airplanes from 2004 to 2007.

Article in Dutch here. The article specified which member had the most private visits in militairy airplanes; if the article is right it seems that the King is 'responsable' for 100 of them.

The costs:

2004: 626.277 euro
2005: 680.626 euro
2006: 470.240 euro
2007: 492.902 euro

Now since the government is responsible for the safety of the king you would suppose that the king is travelling with these airplanes on their advice, so I don't get much of the controversy.
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As ever at the HLN website the anonimous comments are vitriolic at best.
 
The minister defended the RF against attacks from extreme right party Flemish Interest (VB) in parlament. The King needs to be protected, according to the minister. The state has no intention of changing that policy. It also has been a courtesy to the former Queen Consort to allow her 3 private airplane flights a year, again the minister does not feel like changing that either.

The debate: video - Vlaams Belang: 'Koning Albert voortdurend op vakantie'

Since 2005 the princes do not use the military planes for private travels.

And the VB also critisized the king for being on holiday too often, which they based on the high amount of his private flights, mainly to Italy, Spain and France.
 
cdm said:
I agree with the idea that only the king and the crown prince should get a dotation. But I think it would only be fair to start with that with the grandchildren of the present king. It's not fair to Astrid and Laurent to give them a dotation and then take it away again and tell them to go find a job.
Click to expand...

That is true, but if the Belgian people give them a dotation, they should "work" for it by appearing as official representatives of the RF. Prince Laurent does very little in that way, so it is not very fair to give him any amount of money. If he has anything on his agenda, he hardly ever turns up in time (if he turns up at all). Princess Astrid, on the other hand, still has a rather full agenda, she's always turning up at happenings to represent the RF, and she is also very active in the charity field, so that's not really a problem.
 
Prime Minister Leterme told Paris Match that he wants to cut the civil list. The only members that will receive a dotation will be the King and the crownprince!

Article in Dutch here.

CD&V/NV-A are working on a proposal for parliament abou this. It will be difficult though, as many politicians see any change of the monarchy as an attempt to temper with Belgians unity and many will vote against such a change.
 
So, Leterme finally starts to work and comes up with suggestions. Fine. ;) Apparently there´s former royalty journalist Pol Vandendriessche behind it, who is now a member of the Belgian Senate and announced a “revolutionary bill” some time ago. Nothing wrong with limiting the dotations to the core family and more financial transparency is indeed desirable as all these hidden costs discussions cause some damage. That´s why Albert seems to support a reorganisation of the finances. And it is also more or less obvious since years that Astrid and Laurent will loose their dotation when Albert dies.
But in my opinion it´s rather unfair not to grant a payment to retired monarchs or widowed queens. A retired head of state deserves a pension. And since it´s expected that the spouses of the king and the crown prince stop their career to represent the country and also have to agree in division of property in case of divorce a dotation, how small it may be, is due too imo. So far Paola and Mathilde don´t receive a payment. Vandendriessche and co. eagerly refer to the way it´s done in The Netherlands, but to my best knowledge Juliana and Bernhard received a payment too till their death and they also conveniently forget about the dotation for Princess Maxima.
I´m not surprised that Vandendriessche is already pointing out how difficult it will be and that he starts playing the "the francophones are against it" card, that´s just the convenient CD&V/NVA way of doing politics lately.
 
According to Belgian TV Programme 'Royalty' prince Laurent earns a net amount of 8666,- euros for each workday. Last years his dotation was 312.000 euros for 36 public events. An official event on average lasts 2 hours.

For Filips and Mathilde that came on an average of 6328 euros. They earn 924.000,- euros and have 148 public events.

Article in Dutch here.
 
I really am a big fan of the royal family but for me the dotations should only go to King Alber/Queen Paola, Queen FAbiola and Prince Philippe/princess Mathilde the rest of the royal family should go to work.

We only see prince Laurent a few times in a year and then hearing that he earns 8666€ for each workday of 2 hours is really to much! Even inportant leading business men/women earn less than the prince and these people have to work day in day out with a lot of stress. Nowadays prince Laurent has a very bad realtionship with the press so we harldy see him doing anything.
 
Marengo said:
According to Belgian TV Programme 'Royalty' prince Laurent earns a net amount of 8666,- euros for each workday. Last years his dotation was 312.000 euros for 36 public events. An official event on average lasts 2 hours.

For Filips and Mathilde that came on an average of 6328 euros. They earn 924.000,- euros and have 148 public events.

Article in Dutch here.
Click to expand...

Oh and let´s say Katy Pauwels, the lady who presents Royalty, gets a pay check of 100.000€ per year by VTM (just an estimate of course). Divided by her let´s say 45 appearances on TV, she earns more than 2.200€ per day and Royalty is a magazine of 20 minutes, so her 45 workdays are pretty short. And if we now start calculating the income of top soccer players based only on their number of official soccer matches … cough, cough.
With all due respect for VTM, this calculation is nothing else than a waste of time. I´m all for implementing more transparency and it´s indeed rather questionable if Astrid, nr. 6 in line of throne, and Laurent, nr. 12 in line of throne, should be founded by the taxpayer. BTW introducing dotations for Astrid and Laurent was justified by the legislative with the fact that the Belgian citizens would not appreciate it if members of the royal family would engage in commercial or political activities. Their dotations are more a compensation for those limits coming with their position rather than a payment for activities. Times changed obviously and now their dotations are a topic of discussion. Nothing wrong with that, but this silly little calculation is adding nothing to the discussion and is just a populist attempt to stir up things again. HLN of course jumps into this discussion, shortens the Royalty stuff to an even more polemic piece of journalism, et voila, here we go again.

Royalty was fair enough to mention though that Philippe and Mathilde carry out far more engagements than those 146 listed in the official agenda and thus earn much less then the mentioned 6.300€ per day - even the ever so critical Jan Van Den Berghe had a very positive remark on Philippe. Of course they did not mention that especially Philippe and Mathilde´s income isn´t theirs alone but also has to cover their huge expenses (like office staff etc.).
 
And while the nation celebrates the King and the Dynasty, there is a new controversy about the Royal dotations as well. The dotation for the Royal Family will be raised with another 6 % next year, which results in a total of 14 milion Euro. Many politicians are outraged that in times of economic hardship the financials of the royals are raised like that. As a reference: the wages of the average Belgian are raised with a mere 3 to 4%. See here for clip and article in Dutch.

Most politicians agree that the dotations are problematic, and that it would be a nice gesture if the RF would refund the extra money. But the Prime Minister has explained that the Government only executes the law as it was voted in Parliament.
 
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Update on the dotation front: the dotation for the members of the BRF will not be raised with 6 % , following the consumption price index as it always had, but it will be raised like the wages of the working people, with some 3%, following, from now on, the "health index". This has been agreed by the Government, the Palace and the Senate. (See here for article in Dutch). Apparently, the King himself didn't like his raise. Some sources say that the King wants a change in the dotation system himself, because he knows the negative publicity is menacing the image of the royal family.

However, the president of the Senate commission which is supposed to work out some kind of solution for the dotation "problem", Armand De Decker, pointed out that Queen Fabiola, King Albert, Princes Philippe & Laurent and Princess Astrid will always receive a dotation. The system will only be changed for the children of the next King. (See here)
 
Thanks for the information!:flowers: According Wikipedia, Archduke Lorenz had a successful in the banking sector and "is currently a director of UCB, a global pharmaceutical manufacture". This means that the loss of the state dotations may not hit Princess Astrid's family hard.
 
The Parliamentary commission which has been studying the system of the dotations has come to a compromise. In the future, only the reigning monarch, the presumed heir to the throne and the surviving spouse of a deceased monarch will receive dotations.
This means that when Philippe succeeds his father, only his eldest daughter Elisabeth - and her spouse whenever she marries - will receive a dotation from the Belgian government. The dotation may not be combined with commercial or other paying functions.

Princess Astrid and Prince Laurent, however, need not fear. They will continue to receive a dotation, despite their place in the succassion. This has been decided because the comission decided it would be rather unfair to just take it away from them, after they have received a dotation for so long. They are also not allowed to combine the dotation with commercial or other paying fuctions.

Article here (dutch)
 
LadyLeana,
Concerning also the dotations I heard on TV that in the future , the expenses has to be published each year. Do you agree ?
 
Yes, that's true, they also said that.

On the one hand, I think it's a good idea to make the costs of the Royal family transparent. After all, it happens in other countries as well, and the taxpayers and government have every right to know where the money goes.
On the other hand, once the dotation is given to the Princes, it is their money to spend as they like. And such "transparency" might lead to nitpicking, and witch hunts by anti-royalist parties. If they are going to have to account for every single cent, it could become ugly... Discussions type "Why did they have to give such an expesive gift to that head of state durting that state visit" and "why do they have to buy so many xxxx or yyyyy"... I'm not sure anyone is interested in that, but no doubt it will be turned around into something negative.

I guess we'll just have to see how this turns out.

I do like the solution for the dotation and the limit they put on it. Imagine the Belgian tax payer having to cough up the money to sustain all of the King's grandchildren...
Mostly I'm just happy for Laurent and Astrid, that their dotation isn't just taken away from them.
 
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