The future Queen of the Netherlands says she will decline the annual allowance of €1.6 million until she begins taking up royal duties.
Princess Catharina-Amalia may be on her way to becoming the Queen of the Netherlands, but she has every intention of earning everything she gets. On Friday, the teen heir to the Dutch throne penned a letter to Prime Minister Mark Rutte of the Netherlands, turning down her nearly $2 million (or, €1.6 million) annual allowance, explaining that she had done nothing yet to earn it.
"I find that uncomfortable as long as I do not do anything for it in return, and while other students have a much tougher time of it, particularly in this period of coronavirus,” the Princess of Orange wrote in a letter published by NOS, the Dutch public media company.
Amalia, the eldest daughter of King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima, finished high school last week, passing her final exams at the Christelijik Gymnasium Sorghvliet in The Hague and graduating cum laude.
As per Dutch law, she will begin receiving an annual allowance of $1.9 million once she turns 18 years old on December 7, 2021. Nearly $400,000 is designated as income, with an additional $1.54M available for “personnel and material expenses,” NOS reported.
However, she stated in the letter that she will turn down the allowance altogether while she continues her studies, until she officially takes up royal duties.
Additionally, she said she now intends to pay back the $400,000 she was entitled as a student, and will not claim an additional $1.6 million in expenses.
She is now the first member of the Dutch royal family to decline a tax-free salary and expenses allowance, NOS reported. According to The Guardian, the Dutch royals are the most expensive monarchy in Europe, ahead of the British monarchy.
She now plans on taking a gap year before she begins her undergraduate studies in order to “travel a little, discover the world, do things that I may not be able to do in twenty years’ time,” she told Netherlands News Live.
