Norway’s troubled royal family could revert to royal regalia and traditions this week, when they welcomed fellow royals and other top officials from Belgium. The state visit of Belgian King Philippe and Queen Mathilde highlighted the more glamourous side of royalty, and provided a respite from scandal, criminal charges and health concerns.
The visit was officially meant to stress the “close and good relations” between Norway and Belgium. The two countries are allies in NATO and share democratic values, along with monarchies rooted in tradition and family ties. That’s often viewed as a unifying factor especially in times of political upheaval or other troubles.
In Norway, there’s been plenty of trouble within the royal family itself over the past few years. Scandals stirred up by Queen Sonja’s and King Harald’s daughter Princess Martha Louise have settled down while others involving their daugher-in-law Crown Princess Mette-Marit and her son Marius Borg Høiby from an earlier relationship continue to flare up.
King Harald, age 89, and Crown Princess Mette-Marit, age 52, have also been plagued by health problems, with Mette-Marit facing a possible lung transplant. After the extent of her relations with the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein were revealed in early February, she dropped all public appearances, also because of what the palace calls her “health situation.”
She did finally agree to a 20-minute session with Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) last week, to answer some of the many questions that have been piling up, and then attended some of the official welcoming ceremonies when the Belgian royals arrived on Tuesday. That was the first time she’d been back on the job since January 28.
Fully 68 percent of Norwegians still don’t think their crown princess has answered all the questions tied to her three-year correspondence with Epstein, according to a recent public opinion poll. Her husband Crown Prince Haakon, who has had to take over the vast majority of all royal duties in Norway, continues to support her, though, and said he still wants her “at my side.”
She was at his side on Tuesday during official ceremonies inside the Royal Palace, but she didn’t attend those outdoors. Nor was she at the lavish banquet honouring what palace protocol called “the King and Queen of the Belgians” at the palace that same evening. NRK later reported that King Harald paid tribute to her in his official remarks at the banquet, saying that “our dear crown princess” wanted to be there that evening, but “unfortunately she couldn’t be because of her health situation.” Royal expert Ole Jørgen Schulsrud-Hansen of Norway’s TV2 called that “an expression of support” for Mette-Marit from the monarch himself.
Belgian flags, meanwhile, flew all along downtown Oslo’s main boulevard, Karl Johans Gate, this week and there was a traditional official program. King Philippe laid down a wreath at Norway’s national monument at the Akershus Fortress, there was an official lunch back at the palace and Crown Prince Haakon escorted the Belgian royal couple to the Nobel Peace Center and to a business seminar at the Opera House.
Flags also flew all along Oslo’s City Hall Plaza when the royal couple went on board a huge Norwegian vessel berthed nearby that specializes in installing offshore wind turbines. The Belgian king and queen also invited to a reception to at the National Museum, and on Thursday, the crown prince was taking the couple to Stavanger, where meetings with business and defense officials would highlight cooperation between Norway and Belgium.
Belgium’s foreign minister Maxime Prevot was in Oslo this week too, and had a meeting with his Norwegian counterpart Espen Barth Eide. They discussed their own bilateral cooperation, the war in Ukraine and the energy crisis that has erupted after the US and Israel attacked Iran earlier this month.
The Belgian foreign minister also told Oslo newspaper Dagsavisen that Belgium continues to have a freeze on Russian funds in Brussels until the war between Russia and Brussels ends. Then he hopes the money can be used to rebuild and repair war damage caused by Russia in Ukraine. In the meantime the holdings valued at roughly EUR 200 billion are frozen as a means of pressuring Russia, but won’t be tapped into, in order to retain confidence in European financial institutions.
“We would of course like to use this money in Ukraine when a peace agreement is reached,” Prevot told Dagsavisen. “Russia must pay for the damage it has done through this war of aggression.”
NewsinEnglish.no/Nina Berglund
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‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.newsinenglish.no ’
