Thursday, October 13, the Royal Family of the Netherlands announced that Crown Princess Catharina-Amalia has been placed under high protection following threats of an attack and kidnapping made against her.
The 18-year-old has left her Amsterdam home to live at the Huis ten Bosch royal palace in The Hague and only goes out to go to university and under heavy escort.
The fault is probably the "Mocro Maffia", the Dutch drug mafia, which also recently threatened the Belgian Minister of Justice, Vincent Van Quickenborne.
The situation is “really very difficult,” King Willem-Alexander told a press conference on a state visit to Sweden.
According to Queen Máxima, the threats surrounding the princess - who is in the first year of a bachelor's degree in politics, psychology, law and economics (PPLE) - have "enormous consequences" on her life.
"She didn't leave the house.
That means she doesn't live in Amsterdam, she can't really go out.
The consequences are very difficult for her,” said the sovereign, visibly moved.
"It's not student life for her," added the royal couple, who live in The Hague.
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Princess Amalia of the Netherlands enters university.
(Amsterdam, September 5, 2022.) Abaca
In public school
Catharina-Amalia from the Netherlands (called simply Amalia in her family) will celebrate her 19th birthday on December 7.
Born in 2003, she is the eldest daughter of King Willem-Alexander and Queen Máxima, and the older sister of Princesses Alexia (17) and Ariane (15).
The young royal highness became first in line to the Dutch throne when her father was crowned king on April 30, 2013. She was then bestowed the title Princess of Orange.
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Destined to be Queen of the Netherlands one day, Amalia was nevertheless raised as a little girl like the others.
The proof: his parents did not hesitate to send him to the Bloemcampschool, a public primary school of 400 students located in Wassenaar, the town located about ten kilometers from The Hague.
An unprecedented choice in the house of Orange-Nassau.
Then, in 2015, she joined the Christelijk Gymnasium Sorghvliet, a private school in The Hague.
Highly reputed, it has 730 students and in 2007 was ranked "best secondary school in the Netherlands".
And it is on a bicycle, her backpack with purple flowers in a flashy pink basket hanging from the front, that we see the teenager leaving her parents' house at the time to join her new school.
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Maxima and Willem-Alexander from the Netherlands pose with their three daughters.
From left to right: Ariane, Amalia and Alexia.
Sem van der Wal / AFP
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controversies
The years have passed and since then, the young Amalia has made the headlines of Dutch newspapers.
Last year, she publicly apologized for inviting 21 people to her birthday party.
And this, despite the health measures in force during the Covid period.
At that time, the Dutch were still only allowed to invite four people over the age of 13 to private gatherings.
But this is not the first controversy of the Princess of Orange.
In October 2020, Amalia and her family, under fire from critics, had to cut short a controversial stay in Greece.
The rest of the nation took a dim view of these holidays, due to the partial confinement imposed on it at the same time.
The royal family had then hastened to return to the palace, and to present their most sincere apologies to their subjects.
“I am not ready to become queen”
In November 2021, Amalia from the Netherlands was once again talked about after having indulged in a few confidences, transcribed in an authorized biography.
She revealed that she did not feel fit to succeed her father, King Willem-Alexander.
"I'm not ready to become queen," she said.
The heiress had explained to the author Claudia de Breij that if the latter, aged 54 and crowned in 2013, were to die suddenly, she would ask her mother to temporarily replace her on the throne.
"I told my father: 'Keep eating healthy and doing a lot of sport'," she added, not without humor.
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Princess Catharina-Amalia of the Netherlands and her father, King Willem-Alexander.
(The Hague, September 20, 2022.) Koen Van Weel / AFP
In this same book, the student pointed out that once on the throne of the Netherlands, she could accept a possible abolition of the monarchy by the Republicans.
“They of course have the possibility of doing it, and life will go on for me”, declared the one who would have preferred to become a singer.
Words that had a bit challenged the Dutch, destabilized by this lack of enthusiasm.
Breach of protocol
Six months earlier, in June 2021, Queen Máxima's daughter was already allowing herself to break royal protocol.
And for good reason: by means of a letter to Mark Rutte, she had refused an annual allowance of 2 million dollars, which was to be paid to her from the age of 18.
This indemnity was, moreover, to be allocated to him until his coronation.
“On December 7, 2021, I will be 18 years old, and, according to the law, I will receive an allowance, she had written.
It makes me feel uncomfortable as long as I don't do anything in return, and while other students are going through a much tougher time, especially during the coronavirus pandemic."
Catharina-Amalia added that she would refund the $400,000 to which she had been entitled so far, and forfeit the remaining $1.3 million, as long as she did not "generate income" in "her role as princess of Orange".
A decision of an unprecedented nature, then underlined the
Guardian
.
It was the first time that a member of the Dutch royal family refused state compensation.
Even though the kingdom was designated as the most expensive in Europe, as part of a study published in 2012. This strong gesture from Princess Amalia in any case says a lot about this new generation of European crowned heads, who seek somehow to breathe a wind of modernity and simplicity into the monarchy.