Can Danes afford the Queen?

Though most Danes are monarchists they grudgingly agree to finance the Royal Household. The survey conducted by “Interresearch” social research service for “Sondagsavisen” newspaper proves it.

According to the research results, 16 percent of the Danes want the monarchy to be abolished due to its high cost, 34 percent believe the budget of the Royal Household is extremely high, while 47 percent find the current cost of the monarchy quite fine.

Last year there was published a unique report “Public Expenditures for the Royal Household in 2009”, which stated that in 2009 the 13 (today 15) members of the Royal Family with their 8 castles and yacht, cost Danish taxpayers 342.2 million DKK for one year.
 
It is noteworthy that the radical political forces are the biggest opponents of the monarchy. Thus, 59 percent of the extreme right-wing Danish People’s Party devotees openly claim that Danes cannot afford the monarchy, while in the extreme left-wing Red-Green Alliance 44 percent of the supporters have the same opinion.
 
One of the most outspoken critics of the 1075-year-old Danish monarchy is Social Liberal Zenia Stampe who is the chairman of Den Republikanske Grundlovsbevægelse, an association for Danish republicans. “The budget of the Royal Household is equal to the combined costs for the National Film School, the Danish National School of Theatre and Dance, the Royal School of Library and Information Science, the Royal Danish Academy of Music, and the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Arts, Architecture and Conservation,” Stampe said in an interview with TV2. She also said that a president would serve Denmark better and far less expensively than the monarchy does.

However, historian of University of Copenhagen Lars Hovbakke Sørensen does not agree at all. “The Royal Household’s value can’t be measured in terms of kroner. It serves as a unique common ground for the whole population, regardless of what religious, political or ethnic background a person has,” he said.

 

 

Original text: Novolitika