King Willem-Alexander: About the “biggest mistake” of his life

In a podcast, King Willem-Alexander spoke about the corona pandemic and admitted that he made the biggest misjudgment of his life at the time.

On the occasion of his tenth anniversary of the throne, King Willem-Alexander, 56, reviews the years of his reign in ten episodes in the podcast “Door de ogen van de Koning” (German: “With the eyes of the king”) with moderator Edwin Evers. In the eighth part of the podcast, that too can be found on the official website of the Dutch royal familythe monarch has now spoken about the year 2020 and the biggest mistake of his life.

King Willem-Alexander initially misjudged the situation

The year 2020 was marked worldwide by the corona pandemic and its effects on social life. A trip by Willem-Alexander was viewed all the more critically: in the middle of the corona pandemic, the king traveled to Greece while the Dutch were asked to stay at home. Looking back, Queen Máxima’s husband, 51, now says that he was amazed at how quickly the first lockdown came. “When it’s there and you see the hospitals are overwhelmed, the nursing services are overwhelmed, life really comes to a standstill, then suddenly you really understand how serious it is,” he admits.

Lockdown with Queen Máxima, mother-in-law and three daughters

During the lockdown, the royal couple with their daughters Princess Amalia, 19, Princess Alexia, 17, and Princess Ariane, 16, suddenly sat at home like all Dutch people. “It was very funny, one of the daughters said after two days: ‘You might never have expected that from me, but I’ll still miss school,'” recalls Willem-Alexander. “‘Dear darling, that will be difficult for you then. You will probably stay with us for a long time.’ My mother-in-law happened to be here so she stayed longer. She couldn’t go back to Argentina. In our bubble, we had a very good time here. Absolutely.”

As king he ‘couldn’t function optimally’

He was particularly impressed by the great commitment of the health workers during this time. It “hurt” him personally that he could not “function optimally” as king. He was not able to visit the country freely and play a “connecting role” as usual. Appointments were made via zoom, visits were no longer announced in advance so as not to attract crowds. “The essence of the monarchy in the Netherlands is the contact with the people. And that’s gone. You just sit behind your screen and can’t do much,” says Willem-Alexander.

“The biggest misjudgment of my life”

The royal family lost popularity during the corona pandemic. The much-criticized trip to Greece in October 2020 apparently also contributed to this. However, Willem-Alexander does not want to ignore the unpleasant topic in the podcast: “The biggest misjudgment of my life” he calls the controversial trip. “If you didn’t talk about it, this podcast wouldn’t be worth anything.” He explains how the trip came about: A few days before the autumn holidays, Prime Minister Mark Rutte, 56, recommended in a press conference that you only travel if a country is “yellow”, i.e. “safe”. Other restrictions have also been announced. Sports clubs and bars had to be closed again, millions of Dutch people could not start their autumn vacation.


King Willem-Alexander takes responsibility for controversial voyage

Immediately after Rutte’s press conference, the royal couple sat down with their employees and looked at the royal agenda. According to Willem-Alexander, the employees would have said: “We are always so goal-oriented, we have to show what we can do.” He continues: “It was possible to fly to Greece. Well, the biggest mistake we made, which I made, which I am responsible for, but which we think we made overall.” No one – including Premier Rutte – advised him against the trip. Afterwards he recapitulated:

It was wrong, I totally agree with you. Because we didn’t understand, not right… And I’m the one who takes responsibility for that.

We didn’t understand well enough what it means for those 15 million people who couldn’t travel abroad, or 16 million. But for these 15, 16 million people who didn’t travel abroad during the autumn holidays, the pub was closed, the sports club was closed. They couldn’t do anything at all. And two days later I went abroad…”

“They felt let down”

Willem-Alexander continued: “These people felt let down by my trip to Greece. And they rightly felt let down. So it had nothing to do with whether I was in Greece or not, but with that other people in the Netherlands couldn’t do anything and I was happy abroad, and that was wrong of me.” The royal family returned home the next day and apologized via video message.

Source used: koninklijkhuis.nl, Dana Press

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