The Dutch royal court has just released the official list of the most important guests who will be present at the investiture of King Willem-Alexander in the New Church in Amsterdam on Tuesday afternoon, following the abdication of Queen Beatrix.
The adult members of the Dutch royal family will naturally be present en masse, with the obvious exception of Prince Friso, who remains in a coma following his skiing accident last year. The daughter-in-law of Princess Christina, Eva Guillermo-Prinz Valdez, will also not attend, but otherwise all the children and grandchildren of the late Queen Juliana will be present with their partners. Of the younger members only the three daughters of the new King and Queen will attend.
Reigning monarchs are normally not invited to Dutch investitures (like they are not invited to British coronations), so as not to outrank the incoming monarch, but Sovereign Prince Albert II of Monaco will nevertheless be present (without his wife, Princess Charlène). The wife of the King of Morocco, Princess Salma, and the wife of the Emir of Qatar, Sheikha Mozah, will be the only consorts present.
Most other royal houses will be represented by the heirs: The Duke and Duchess of Brabant representing Belgium, the Crown Prince of Bahrain, the Crown Prince of Brunei and his wife, the Crown Prince and Crown Princess of Denmark, the Crown Prince and Crown Princess of Japan (the Crown Princess is rarely seen at royal events, but a trip to the Netherlands will give her the chance to visit her parents, who live in The Hague), the Hereditary Prince and Hereditary Princess of Liechtenstein, the Hereditary Grand Duke and Hereditary Grand Duchess of Luxembourg (who the Dutch royal court has mistakenly upgraded to Grand Duke and Grand Duchess on the guestlist), the Crown Prince and Crown Princess of Norway, the Prince and Princess of Asturias representing Spain, the Crown Prince of Thailand and his sister Princess Sirindhorn, the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall representing Britain, and Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel representing Sweden.
Other royal guests will be Prince Hassan of Jordan (the former Crown Prince, uncle of the present King) and his wife Sarvath, Haitham bin Tareq al Said representing the Sultan of Oman and Sheikh Hamed bin Zayed al Nahyan representing the United Arab Emirates.
While the family of Princess Máxima will not be present, her native Argentina will be represented by Vice President Amado Boudou and the acting President of the Senate, Senator Beatriz Rojkes de Alperovich. The Governor General of Canada, David Johnston, will attend with his wife Sarah Johnston, and Turkey will be represented by Deputy Prime Minister Ali Babacan and his wife Zeynep Babacan. There will also be lower-ranking representatives of Germany and South Korea in attendance, along with the Presidents of the European Commission (José Manuel Barroso), the European Parliament (Martin Schulz) and the European Council (Herman Van Rompuy).
Other guests will include the President of the International Olympic Committee, Count Jacques Rogge, the former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, and UNDP Administrator Helen Clark (former Prime Minister of New Zealand).
Will any members of non-reigning royal families, like Romania or Serbia, be present?
ReplyDeleteMonica
They are not on the list of official delegations and I would not expect any of them to be there. For a wedding or a birthday they might be invited as friends or relatives, but this is a state occasion, to which there is no reason to invite ex-royals who do not represent any countries. As far as I know there were also no ex-royals present at the previous investiture in 1980 - the exception being those who count as close family, i.e. Prince Bernhard's brother of Lippe-Biesterfeld in 1980 and Princess Irene's children of Bourbon-Parma this year.
DeleteI was under the impression that Bernardo Guillermo's wife's name was simply Eva Prinz (her first husband's surname); is Guillermo-Prinz Valdez her full legal surname?
ReplyDeleteIs there any particular reason for the representation from Turkey and South Korea? I cannot recall the connection between the Oranges and those two countries.
To be honest I have no idea; that was the name I found when I did a quick Internet search. I am also unaware of the reason for the presence of the representatives of Turkey and South Korea.
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