Wednesday, January 27, 2010

"only" a Grand Duke

There is another article covering the costs of Europe's monarchs. I suspect this is the original source of the brief mention on Radio Netherlands.

While the dear Professor may be correct about the seemingly excessive cost of some monarchs (which is still less than a republic of equal caliber would cost) and their households he certainly appears to have some elitism where Luxembourg is concerned. His remark that, "Luxembourg pays 8.7 million euros, but this buys the small country only a grand duke, not a true king or queen" makes it appear that Luxembourg is somehow being shafted for their 8.7 million euro. I have to disagree (see previous post) and so would any self respecting Luxembourger. Why on earth would we ever want a "real king or queen?" I suppose it is possible that the professor maybe unaware that Luxembourg is the world's only Grand Duchy. The Grand Duchy is possibly the grandest of all nations in the eyes of this blogger.

But I digress....

We have the distinction and privilege of being the only Grand Duchy despite our small size. It is only appropriate that Luxembourg be led not by a "real" king or queen but by a real Grand Duke. There was, of course, a time when the Grand Duke of Luxembourg was also a King but so far as Luxembourg was concerned he was still only The Grand Duke. There are also former Grand Duchies a plenty but only Luxembourg remains.

Luxembourg is The Grand Duchy of the world. This is a unique position and we are proud of our small nation.   I think that the good professor is unaware that the motto of The Grand Duchy is "Mir welle bleiwe wat mir sinn." Allow me to translate this into terms that could be understood from his point of view....We don't have a king or queen and we don't want one no matter how "real" they are! We are happy being a small nation that is served by a Grand Duke.

The statistics are also misleading in the way they are displayed. Sure, Luxembourgers only pay 8.7 million but there are only 493,500 privileged individuals who call The Grand Duchy home. This is roughly 17.63 per resident per year. When compared to the average cost per resident of other nations it really doesn't seem so cheap as the professor wants the world to think. However, it is still a good deal for our nation. We enjoy a standard of living that is relatively unmatched throughout the world and we could realistically afford something more along the lines of some other overdone monarchies. We are fortunate to have a representative family that is just posh enough to display the affluence of Luxembourg and knows where to draw the line. I could list a long line of superlatives describing the Grand Ducal Court and each member of the family but I won't because it isn't necessary. They aren't perfect but they certainly are unmatched.

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