For the moment the King and the Royal House are safe - for the moment.
The NOS (the Dutch equivalent of the BBC) made an analysis.
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Picture: the King and the Prime Ministers - both the same age - both Leyden University - both studied History)
With this coalition on the pluche, the King sits on velvet
How the flag really hangs for King Willem-Alexander after the elections and the formation of this new Cabinet, will soon become clear when the Chapter One of the State Budget ("The King") is on the parliamentary agenda.
Apart from the most important critic of the King in recent years (the left-liberal
D66), the Cabinet with
VVD (right-liberal),
CDA and
ChristenUnie (both Christian-Democrat parties) consists of loyal Orange supporters. It is not obvious that a Cabinet which cherishes national symbols such as the
Wilhelmus and
De Nachtwacht, will start tinkering with the monarchy.
Alexander Pechtold, the leader of
D66, who always made pleas for an "austere and modern kingship" now is a leader of a party in the coalition and he has to take this into account. The King sits on velvet.
King Willem-Alexander also has little to fear from the opposition in the Second Chamber, provided that he remains constitutionally solid and can prevent (financial) scandals. The written preparation for the parliamentary reading of the Budget indicates this.
Orange pennant (
picture)
The Second Chamber will not immediately provide the national flag that now hangs in the assembly hall with an orange pennant. But parties with a republican preference lack the required majority to advance, after the removal of the King from the formation of a new Cabinet, towards a strictly ceremonial monarchy.
Tax exemptions
Yet there is a catch. At the end of this month, the deferred report of a committee will be published, commissioned by the Cabinet, for archival research into an assumed secret tax deal concluded with the royal family in the 1970s. This assumed deal was meant as a compensation for taxes that the Orange-Nassaus would have to pay (for the first time) about their private assets.
It is conceivable that through this report the tax exemptions enjoyed by the Royal House will -again- be discussed. In the wake of this, the discussion can also flare up again about the height of the incomes the State pays to members of the Royal House
Time-consuming
The case concerns tax exemptions for King Willem-Alexander, Queen Máxima, Princess Beatrix and for Princess Amalia as soon as she turns 18. As members of the Royal House who are entitled to a State income, they do not have to pay tax on the income they receive from the State Treasury and also no tax on the parts of their assets that are important for the execution of the royal dignity.
In addition, King Willem-Alexander and Princess Amalia are also exempted from inheritance tax. Because this so-called "tax exemption" is anchored in constitutional article 40, it is difficult and time-consuming for Parliament to draw attention to it, because a two-thirds majority is required in two different Parliaments.
Populism
Even though it is difficult to change the tax exemptions of the Royal House, there is another way to achieve the same goal: a lower royal income. For a parliamentary majority, it is possible to reduce the annual payments to King Willem-Alexander, Queen Máxima and Princess Beatrix. The amount of this is not regulated in the Constitution, but in the Financial Statute of the Royal House.
Last year Prime Minister Rutte got the Chamber on his side with his plea to leave the royal arrangements as they are. D66 leader Pechtold then talked about the "pocket money" of 1, 5 million Euro that Princess Amalia gets when she turns eighteen, but Rutte denounced this as "populism", because the whole Chamber had -with almost unanimity- agreed to this in 2008.
https://nos.nl/artikel/2203528-met-deze-coalitie-op-het-pluche-zit-de-koning-op-fluweel.html