‘Amalia is really leaving now’, says Queen Máxima about her eldest daughter who is moving into rooms. ‘It’s only to Amsterdam, you know’, Amalia reassures her mother. “That’s not the end of the world.”
It is a homely moment during the annual press interview with King Willem-Alexander and Queen Máxima, to which Princess Amalia (18) will join for the first time on Friday afternoon. Her sisters Alexia (Sunday 17) and Ariane (15) are not that far yet, they limit themselves to the preliminary pose for the photographers.
Amalia will also ride in the Glass Carriage on Prinsjesdag for the first time in September. Last Friday she attracted a lot of attention with her appearance at the gala dinner for the 18th birthday of Princess Ingrid Alexandra of Norway. With a diadem by Máxima in her hair – she herself speaks of ‘my mother’s wedding tiara’.
Willem-Alexander will be king for ten years next year. After a flawless start, his popularity has suffered a few serious scratches in recent years, but it is becoming increasingly apparent that with the gradual arrival of Amalia in the public domain, the Oranges have a new trump card in their hands. Everything she does is of interest: from obtaining her hunting license to a ride on horseback on a Sunday morning on the Korte Voorhout.
Study for generalists
On Friday, too, most of the attention goes to Amalia. The summer session was supposed to be held on the beach, but has been moved to Noordeinde Palace due to an impending storm. Nine questioners from the written press have come forward, thirteen from radio and television. Queen Máxima regularly participates in the conversation, but does not get the first question once. It shows how much a new phase is entering the court.
In September, Amalia will study Politics, Psychology, Law and Economics at the UvA. Her father made her aware of this study. ‘I wanted to follow an interdisciplinary study, with a view to my future.’ Willem-Alexander: ‘It is the best study for generalists, which unfortunately did not exist in my time.’
Since the lifting of the social restrictions necessary by corona, which were also difficult for the Royal House and led to much-discussed incidents, the royal couple’s agenda is again richly filled with physical meetings. The zooming without the attention of the people is over. Aside from all domestic obligations, Máxima was in Côte d’Ivoire and Senegal earlier this month before the United Nations. A state visit to Austria awaits next week.
Council of Europe
Willem-Alexander was in Strasbourg on Thursday, where he fulfilled a role that also belongs to the monarchy: drawing attention to important initiatives and institutes. He paid a working visit to the Council of Europe, where he gave a speech in the Parliamentary Assembly and was given a tour of the European Court of Human Rights. De Volkskrant followed the king that day. In the main meeting room of the Council, established after the Second World War as an organization to promote human rights and democracy, the king was vehement in his condemnation of the war that Russia has unleashed in Ukraine.
“The Russian invasion is a blatant violation of everything we stand for as a family of European countries,” said Willem-Alexander. “This cynical violence goes against all the fundamental values on which the Council of Europe is built.” 46 European countries are members of the Council, but Russia was stripped of its membership in March – the end of the illusion that Russia was part of the European family.
In his speech, Willem-Alexander also included a passage about violence against journalists. Since 2015, the Council has had a special platform that draws attention to the protection of the press. In a conversation after the speech, the king was told that press freedom was sometimes at stake during corona demonstrations and that the murder of Peter R. de Vries has shed light on the danger of organized crime for journalists.
Protection of journalists
In the palace, each journalist is allowed to ask one question. Every reason to present the king with a phrase from the day before: ‘Protecting the safety of journalists is a subject that requires extra impulses.’ What impulses is he thinking about? ‘Journalists must always be able to do their job, and it is important that the government stands for this. It is good that the Council of Europe is looking over the shoulder of the Netherlands, because it needs to go a step further: more attention and more action to ensure that organized crime does not stand in the way of making good journalism possible.’
The fact that Willem-Alexander is king of a country that is facing many more crises keeps him busy every day. “I’m worried about that.” He notes, especially for the farmers, that they must have ‘perspective’. About his own future, he says he is happy to ‘be able to operate normally again’ and that he will continue to do so for many years to come. Laughing: ‘This also to reassure my daughter.’