As we all know by now, Belgium has more than its fair share of issues, attempting to be a modern, first-world, western European monarcy/nation. Besides having no functioning government for well over a year now (I don't think there's any African or southeast Asian nation which can boast the same...), even the monarchy seems to be disfunctional.
Not disfunctional as in the UK, where most royal dalliances seem to center on sex or divorce. Here, it's disfunctional as in the crown prince can't seem to keep his mouth shut whenever he travels and has now gotten himself onto a sort of internal national PNG list. Recent trips to the Congo and Libya turned into public relations disasters for him and it's gotten to the point where he is no longer allowed to travel abroad without first clearing the trip with the parliament (!). The parliament which, of course, was voted out of office over a year ago.
There are over a half-dozen monarchies in western Europe, but none seems to be plagued with royal issues as much as Belgium. The prince has become such a lightening rod for embarrassment that, at the royal festivities this week to celebrate Belgian Independence Day, the king formally dis-invited him to take part. Just as well - the prince was probably busy checking out Ryan Air flights on line, booking his next purchase to Morocco or somewhere in that area...
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