Prince Laurent of Belgium has had his monthly allowance docked for a year, after a vote by the country’s federal parliament.<\/p>\n
The sanction was imposed after the prince attended a Chinese embassy reception last year without government permission, in full naval uniform.<\/p>\n
Lawmakers voted for a 15% cut to his \u20ac307,000 (\u00a3270,000; $378,000) annual allowance.<\/p>\n
The move was suggested by Belgium’s Prime Minister, Charles Michel.<\/p>\n
Mr Michel had previously warned the prince to seek foreign ministry permission before conducting any diplomatic activity.<\/p>\n
Despite that, the royal went to the embassy event and tweeted a photo of himself there.<\/p>\n
How did he argue against the fine?<\/strong> He described the vote as “the trial of my life” and said it would “likely cause me serious prejudice” if MPs went against him.<\/p>\n “This allowance, the reduction of which is being discussed as a result of political or media currents, is the price of a life – the price of my life, which is largely behind me now,” he wrote.<\/p>\n The prince, 54, said the royal family had obstructed his attempts to be financially independent.<\/p>\n “I even had to get permission to marry, and even today I pay the price for choosing a woman I love, without title or fortune,” he wrote in the three-page self-defence.<\/p>\n Lawmakers ultimately rejected his claim that no citizen of their country had been so exploited, voting to cut his stipend by 93 to 23 votes.<\/p>\n The move is effectively a \u20ac46,000 fine. However, some MPs argued that since princes are not obliged to seek an endowment, it should instead be viewed as a deduction from a donation.<\/p>\n Who is the prince?<\/strong> He has racked up several speeding fines, and his unofficial appearance at the Chinese event – held for the 90th anniversary of the Chinese army – was not the first of its kind.<\/p>\n He had previously been criticised for attending meetings in Libya when the late Muammar Gaddafi was still in power, and making an unsanctioned 2011 trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo, a former Belgian colony.<\/p>\n Despite this, he is also seen as a likeable figure, if something of an oddball, AFP news agency notes.<\/p>\n The animal lover recently confessed that he wished he could “converse with an octopus or a fly”.<\/p>\n –<\/p>\n Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Prince Laurent of Belgium has had his monthly allowance docked for a year, after a vote by the country’s federal parliament. The sanction was imposed after the prince attended a Chinese embassy reception last year without government permission, in full naval uniform. Lawmakers voted for a 15% cut to his \u20ac307,000 (\u00a3270,000; $378,000) annual allowance. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":414627,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[18352,11536,18351],"class_list":["post-414626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","tag-cursed-prince-of-belgium","tag-belgium","tag-pay-cut-for-cursed-prince-of-belgium"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=414626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414626\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/414627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=414626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=414626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=414626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nPrince Laurent, who is the younger brother of King Philippe, wrote a lengthy emotional letter to parliament before the vote on his endowment, arguing that, as a royal, he is unable to work for a living.<\/p>\n
\nPrince Laurent is no stranger to controversy and is sometimes termed the prince maudit – the “cursed prince” – in Belgium.<\/p>\n