More money for Dutch royals, less for poor people

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This 2010 video is called Netherlands: The Royal Palace in Amsterdam.

Today, there was the King’s Speech and the publication of the government’s new budget in the Netherlands.

Translated from NOS TV in the Netherlands:

King will make 43,000 euro more

Today, 17:51

… the incomes of King Willem-Alexander, Queen Máxima [married to Willem-Alexander] and Princess [Queen Mother] Beatrix will go up.

According to the National Budget the income of the king this year rises from 823,000 euro to 854,000 euro and will rise further next year to 866,000 euro. In total Willem-Alexander will thus get 43,000 euros more.

Queen Máxima sees her earnings this year rise from 326,000 to 339,000 euro. Next year, she will receive 4000 euros more, and will reach 343,000 euros. Princess Beatrix this year goes from 465,000 to 483,000 euro and to 489,000 euro next year.

Phone

The king, the queen and the princess also get expenses for personnel and equipment paid by the government. These expenditures are estimated for Willem-Alexander at 4,54 million euros; for Máxima 591,000 euros and 975,000 euros for Beatrix.

Replacing the outdated telephony infrastructure service for the royal family has cost more money than budgeted. Last year 500,000 additional euros were needed to replace cables, software and hardware. The project cost a total of 750,000 euros.

State visits

For the first time all costs for the royal family are together in the budget of the king, including the costs incurred by other ministries for the royals. This is about the palaces, the security and the state visits.

The outgoing and incoming visits of the royal family are for 2,4 million euro in the budget.

Palaces

The three palaces (Huis ten Bosch, the Royal Palace in Amsterdam and Palace Noordeinde) represent 15,1 million in the books. Because of the renovation of palace Huis ten Bosch this will rise with around 1,5 million euros per year from 2017 on. The costs of that renovation are estimated at 59 million euros.

The costs for maintenance and operation of the royal yacht De Groene Draeck will rise from 51,000 euros to 95,000 euros. The regular budget was inadequate, says the Defence department, which is responsible for the maintenance of the yacht.

The flight costs of the royal family are estimated at 883,000 euro. About half concerns the use of the government plane, assuming that it is used for 75 hours. The other expenses are for hiring civilian helicopters and civilian aircraft.

Meanwhile, Dutch taxpayers will probably have to pay 550 million euro extra for Joint Strike Fighter warplanes because of cost overruns.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the same budget; also from NOS TV today, it turns out that Dutch pensioners’ incomes will go down. And (translated):

According to Ieder(in) [organisation of disabled people in the Netherlands] workers with disabilities will decline between 2.9 percent and 11.1 percent in purchasing power. People on benefits with disabilities will have to surrender between 2.3 and 12.5 percent.

The poorest people in the Netherlands will get poorer this year.

Secret deal on Dutch royals’ money: here.

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