Being a young royal heir is not a bargain in this century. To the little freedom of decision about their lives is now added the fashion established in this generation of giving up their public assignments while they study. In order to appear more frugal or to delay the start of their institutional work, this is the case of several crown princes who will not receive payment from the State until they focus exclusively on representation tasks for their countries.
Prince Christian of Denmark will not receive the expected financial allowance when he turns 18 on October 15, the Danish royal house announced last week. Unlike his grandmother, Margaret II, and his father, Prince Frederick, he will not receive public income until he is 21: “Prince Christian’s main priority in the coming year will be to complete his secondary education. […] support will be sought in the Danish parliament for an annuity law when the prince turns 21 or on a possible succession to the throne, if that occurs earlier,” the Kongehuset announced. After these years, Christian is expected to spend more time on official events, but until then the prince will participate in them in a limited way. At the moment he is the heir to the heir.
This is not the case of Princess Eleanor, who not only attends official events alone, but also, after having completed high school in Wales, begins her military training on August 17. The Princess of Asturias, who will come of age on October 31, will join the General Military Academy of the Army, in Zaragoza, to begin training for her future as the first woman who, in accordance with the Constitution, will have the supreme command of the Armed Forces.
During the three-year training, in which she will go through the academies of the Army, Air Force and the Navy, the heiress to the throne has renounced the monthly allowance, of between 417 and 668 euros depending on seniority, to which all students of the educational centers of the Armed Forces have the right, as the Palacio de la Zarzuela clarified this year. Her salary as princess of Asturias should be agreed in the coming years taking into account that in Spain it is the Executive who has the power to design the curriculum of the heir to the throne.
The first to give up her official assignment to focus on her university studies was the heir to the Belgian throne. Princess Elizabeth of Belgium resigned in 2019, when she became the heir of legal age, at the 920,000 euros a year that her father received when he was the heir. She wanted to wait to receive that important income to focus on her studies and have a “normal” life like any young person, they then claimed from the palace, since the activities of institutional representation would have been incompatible with her studies. Currently, she Isabel is studying the third year of a degree in History and Political Science at the University of Oxford. She only stayed one year at the Belgian Royal Military School and did not receive a salary either.
Another who gave up a significant sum is Amalia from the Netherlands. The daughter of kings Guillermo and Máxima renounced in writing in 2021 a part of the 1.6 million euros that the country’s budgets had planned for her after she came of age. The princess informed the Prime Minister, Mark Rutte, through a handwritten letter, that, until the end of her university education, she will return 300,000 euros of her annual salary and that the remaining 1.3 million, which corresponds to her by law for personnel and material expenses, she will also return them if she does not incur great expenses in her preparation as heir to the Dutch throne or for her Princess of Orange foundation.
Princess Ingrid Alejandra of Norway is the one who has the least news in this regard. In Norway, where anyone can find out what their neighbour, celebrity or politician is earning via the Internet in just a few clicks, among the few who cannot be found on these public lists are members of the Norwegian royal house. The eldest daughter of princes Haakon and Mette-Marit turned 18 on January 21, 2022, although her coming-out was held in June of that year.
