Royal Family cost Dutch taxpayers 114 million Euro a year: That’s two Big Macs per person, per year…
This from one of the Dutch newspapers: “Het Koninklijk Huis kost de Nederlandse staat dit jaar 114 miljoen euro.” Which translates as: “The Dutch royal family cost the state 114 million Euros this year.”
What’s somewhat remarkable about the story is the fact that it’s a Belgian study, done by a professor doctor Herman Matthijs, who’s connected to the University of Brussels.
What is quite remarkable, in fact, is that this study appears just a week or so after the Dutch Prime Minister, Jan Peter Balkenende, claimed it was impossible for him to say how much the upkeep of our Royal Family did cost the state.
Still, maybe this is not all that remarkable after all: Balkenende is a politician and, as such, quite good at lying.
According to this study, by the way, the Dutch Royal family is the second most costly European monarchy – only beaten in terms of extravagance by the British Royal Family. The British Royal Family is vastly more entertaining than the Dutch monarchy, though, so they deserve the higher salary, of course. That’s how it goes in the world of entertainment.
Still, it’s not all that much money, when you come to think of it. For instance, the Dutch government raises three times as much taxing soft drugs each year. Anyway, 114 million Euros translates as around 91 million British pounds and 180 million US dollars. Talking of those currencies and those two countries: The English will spend more than 5000 times as much per day on the 2012 London Olympics, while the Americans have been spending almost twice as much per day on the Iraq war as we do on our Royals each year…
However, let’s forget about those international comparisons. As of this moment, there are some 16-and-a-half million people living in Holland. So, our Royal family cost each of our citizens about 7 Euro a year – which is about the cost of two Big Macs, which would make for some 1000 calories in toto. In other words, the cost of our Royal family weighs in at less than three calories per day per person. Even the most anorexic model could live with that, I’m sure.
Truly, royalty has never come as cheap as in the 21st century!
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