European royals get a (small) taste of austerity

In this Oct. 12, 2009 file photo, Princess Letizia Ortiz, Spain's Crown Prince Felipe, Spain's King Juan Carlos, Princess Elena, Queen Sofia, Princess Cristina and her husband Inaki Urdangarin, from left, attend a military parade, during the holiday known as Dia de la Hispanidad, Spain's National Day, in Madrid. Spain's Crown Princess Letizia has a penchant for haute couture. Queen Elizabeth II's Bentley's are spotless. Belgium's King Albert II maintains a sumptuous villa in the south of France. But believe it or not, many of Europe's royals are feeling a pinch of the austerity sweeping the continent as it deals with its debt crisis. AP PHOTO/ARTURO RODRIGUEZ

MADRID—Spain’s Crown Princess Letizia has a penchant for haute couture. Queen Elizabeth II’s Bentleys are spotless. Belgium’s King Albert II maintains a sumptuous villa in the south of France. But believe it or not, many of Europe’s royals are feeling a pinch of the austerity sweeping the continent as it deals with its debt crisis.

The latest in royal belt-tightening comes from Spain, where King Juan Carlos has cut his own salary, as well as that of his son and heir Prince Felipe, by about 7 percent. The avuncular king, who is generally respected by his people, took the step after being engulfed in a public relations nightmare over an expensive elephant-hunting safari he took this spring as Spaniards endured hardship and bailout fears.

Here is a look at how austerity is making its mark in European countries that still have royal families.

SPAIN

Juan Carlos’s salary this year will be reduced to about €272,000 ($334,000) and that of his only son, Crown Prince Felipe, to €131,000 ($160,000) respectively. The cut is in line with a new austerity package unveiled last week which features, among other things, the suspension of one of 14 paychecks into which Spanish civil servants’ yearly salary is divided.

The Spanish royal budget is relatively small compared to those of other countries—€8.26 million, and now down to €8.16 million with the king’s gesture. Even the original figure was down 2 percent from 2011.

The king acted voluntarily, and in the cuts he included Felipe, Queen Sofia, Crown Princess Letizia and his daughters, princesses Elena and Cristina.

The female royals do not get a salary per se. But the pool of money available for their expenses is being trimmed, also by about 7 percent, to €292,625. The newspaper El Mundo put it this way: “So, among the four, they will not be able to spend more than €292,625 a year on clothing, shoes, accessories or hairdressing.”

Then, there’s this: since last year, Royal Palace staffers fly coach.

BRITAIN

In recent years Queen Elizabeth, long known as one of the world’s richest women with her priceless collection of fine art, jewels and real estate holdings, has opened some parts of Buckingham Palace to tourists, raising money on admission tickets. Palace officials say they have met targets that called for a 25 percent cut in real terms in the use of public expenditures to support the monarchy.

Buckingham Palace officials say the queen—this year celebrating her Diamond Jubilee to mark six decades on the throne—has cut her use of public funds to stay in line with wide-ranging budget cuts announced by the government.

That’s meant a pay freeze for royal staff, an increased emphasis on generating income through royal properties, and a reduction in planned property maintenance—although the royal fleet of Bentleys and other classic cars always appears spotless in public.

But travel costs have stayed high, in part because the queen is dispatching senior royals, including Prince Charles, Prince Harry and Prince William, to far corners of the Commonwealth for Jubilee festivities.

Official accounts showed British taxpayers spent 32.1 million pounds ($49.5 million) supporting the monarchy in 2011, 5.3 percent less than the previous year. Much of the saving came from cutting the maintenance bill of royal residences from 15.4 million pounds ($23.8 million) to 11.9 million pounds ($18.4 million).

THE NETHERLANDS

Dutch Queen Beatrix, who lives in a state-owned palace in a forest on the edge of The Hague, is paid a salary of €829,000 a year and also receives €4,314,000 for “personal and material” expenses. The budget for Queen Beatrix, Crown Prince Willem Alexander and his wife, Princess Maxima, was cut in 2011 by €422,000 to €39.2 million, according to the latest figures on the Royal House website.

Most of those savings came in the form of cuts to the royals’ private travel expenses. Also, the queen forked over €163,000 from her own pocket for maintenance on her private yacht, the Groene Draeck.

BELGIUM

King Albert II pledged this year to use part of his salary to help pay for the upkeep on his properties.

He made a rare public statement in January saying he wanted to freeze the €10.8 million ($13.8 million) he gets from the state. He intends to use an automatic 2012 salary inflation adjustment of some 3 percent—or roughly €350,000 ($446,000)—to help pay for some property maintenance costs normally borne by the government.

The amount may be relatively small, but even such a symbolic concession could help ease the pressure on the royal family, which increased when it became clear the Belgian constitution forces the government to pay out the inflation adjustment under any circumstance.

SCANDINAVIA, THE EXCEPTION TO THE RULE

Norway—one of the richest countries in Europe per capita—has not cut its royal budget, nor have neighbors Denmark and Sweden. Indeed, the countries of Scandinavia have largely dodged Europe’s debt crisis. Their budgets are in order, as they did not spend beyond their means, as some countries of the south did, such as Greece, Spain and Portugal. They are suffering indirectly, of course, because weakened Europe is a big export market for the Scandinavians.—Gregory Katz in London, Don Melvin in Brussels, Mike Corder in Amsterdam and Karl Ritter in Stockholm contributed to this report.