Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Guillaume Gives a Speech

Together with his usual companion in crime Luxembourg's Minister for Economy and Foreign Trade Jeannot Krecké, The Hereditary Grand Duke attended the ALFI Global Distribution Conference in Association with NICSA & HKIFA today. Both gentlemen gave speeches at the opening of the two day conference but we'll focus solely on what our dear Guillaume said.

During his speech about Microfinance, Guillaume asked the participating market players for long-lasting investments and investments in the field of microfinance stating, "Poverty is not a serious issue in Luxembourg and the EU, but unemployment has been rising since 2008 and young people are the first victims. Our youth is in dire need of job creation. So microfinance might be solution even within our borders." (taken from ALFI Events - Microfinance for Europe)

More information about the conference can be found on the ALFI conferences blog (in English) and on paperJam.lu (in French). Photos of the event taken by Luc Deflorenne are now available on paperJam.lu and in the blog post about Guillaume's speech.


Sources: ALFI Events, paperJam.lu

Monday, September 26, 2011

New Parents Attend Concert

Back in August, a concert with the title Les musicales de Belœil took place at the, you probably already guessed it, Château de Belœil. In case you are not exactly up to date about the ownership of Belgian castles; since 1394 the castle is the home of one of Belgium's oldest noble families, the de Ligne's. The head of the family Prince Michel de Ligne, who organised the event together with his family, is the son of Prince Antoine of Ligne and Princess Alix of Luxembourg; that makes him the nephew of Grand Duke Jean and the cousin of of the current Grand Duke.

Among the guests at the concert were Archduchess Marie-Christine of Austria, the daughter of Archduchess Marie-Astrid (née Princess of Luxembourg), and her husband Count Rodolphe of Limburg-Stirum. To see a picture of the young parents all happy and smiling, have a look on page 72 and 73 of the Point de Vue-edition from last week over at youkioske.


Sources: Point de Vue 3295, Les Musicales de Belœil

And, as basically always when it comes to news that made it into Point de Vue, thank you to Iza and Rocio for letting us know about it!

Sunday, September 25, 2011

The Norwegian Birthday Party

On Thursday Norway's Princess Märtha-Louise celebrated her 40th birthday, belated best wishes! Yesterday, her parents King Harald V. and his wife Queen Sonia threw a birthday party for their only daughter and oldest child. As mentioned previously, Luxembourg's very own Hereditary Grand Duke was at hand to celebrate the Princess' decadal birthday.


More pictures, sadly none in another setting or of Guillaume arriving, are available at Aftenposten, siste.no and the major photo agencies.


Source: Aftenposten, siste.no

Saturday, September 24, 2011

A Birthday, a Conference and Much More

Thanks to the recently introduced agenda we now know what the members of the Grand Ducal Family will be up to. Unfortunately, the agenda still is somewhat sketchy as there are more events the family attends than those listed on the official website. Still we are happy about any information we get on their official engagements, so here is what is planned for the next couple of days...

Tonight, the Hereditary Grand Duke will be in in the Norwegian capital Oslo to attend a private dinner that will take place at The Royal Palace to celebrate the 40th birthday of Princess Märtha-Louise, the daughter of the King and Queen of Norway.

On Tuesday, Hereditary Grand Duke Guillaume will give a speech at the opening of the 20th Alfi Global Distribution Conference. In case you are not in knowledge of every abbreviation there exists: Alfi is the short form for Association of the Luxembourg Fund Industry and the conference will focus on the latest developments in cross-border distribution of Luxembourg investment funds especially in the Asian region.

Three days later on upcoming Friday, Guillaume will attend the 21st charity gala of the Kraïzbierg Foundation in Mondorf-les-Bains.

On October 1st, Grand Duke Henri will make his way to Muri, Switzerland to attend the funeral of Archduke Félix of Austria, the last surviving child of Blessed Emperor Karl and Empress Zita who died on September 6th, just a few weeks after his brother Archduke Otto, aged 95 in Mexico. Archduke Felix was named after Prince Félix of Bourbon-Parma, the brother of Empress Zita, a born Princess of Bourbon-Parma, and, I'm sure you all know, the husband of Grand Duchess Charlotte.
As always at a Habsburg event, we can hope for appearances of Princess Marie-Astrid, her husband Archduke Carl-Christian of Austria and a few of their children.

A day later, the Grand Duke will attend a church service at the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Luxembourg in the course of national commemoration day. Afterwards he will visit the Monument National de la Solidarité on the Kanounenhiwwel. The monument was erected to commemorate the dead of the Second World War, as well as Luxembourgish resistance and solidarity against Nazi Germany, that invaded Luxembourg on May 10th, 1940.


Sources: Cour Grand Ducale, Kongehuset.no, Alfi Global Distribution Conference - Programme, Wikipedia - German occupation of Luxembourg in World War II, Wikipedia - Kanounenhiwwel

Friday, September 23, 2011

What They've Been Up To

The Grand Ducal Family et moi should start to coordinate our holidays; I went away at the time they came back... Therefore, it is now time to do a little recap of what they have been up to during the last two weeks or so.

The after-vacation events of our favourite Hereditary Grand Duke kicked off with attending a concert of the Europeen Union Youth Wind Orchestra at the Teatro Ribeiro da Conceição in Lamego, Portugal. My dear Guillaume, if you look like that afterwards, you should go on holiday every second week ;) More eye candy is available on the official website.

A few days later, on September 14th, the Grand Duke himself joined in when he received Josette Sheeran for an audience at the Palais Grand-Ducale. The 11th Executive Director of the United Nations Worlds Food Programme visited the Grand Duchy on a working visit.

Life and work went on with an anniversary celebration for Luxembourg's steel industry and the first appearance of la Grand Duchesse. On September 15th, Grand Duke Henri and Grand Duchess Maria Teresa, both looking tanned, relaxed and happy, attended an event celebrating 100 years of steel industry in the Grand Duchy.
More information and pictures can be found at Wort, Tageblatt, Cour Grand-Ducale, Revue, L'essentiel, Journal, and probably all over the internet.

According to Wort, later the same day, Grand Duke Henri met the new British ambassador to Luxembourg, Mrs. Alice Walpole.

A day later, the Grand Duchess had her first solo engagement after this year's holidays when she received Muhammad Yunus at the Palais. In case you are a regular follower of the Grand Ducal Family, you already know that the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate is a frequent guest in Luxembourg, as both he and the Grand Duchess are active in the field of Microfinance and Social Business.

And finally, on last Sunday (September 18th), Grand Duke Henri visited the Oeko-Foire 2011, a fair specialising in the topic of sustainable development.

Friday, September 2, 2011

A Posing Princess

In the newest edition of Spanish magazine ¡Hola!, that is fortunately available at youkioske, one can find an article about Archduchess Sophie of Austria, the Princess of Windisch-Graetz. What does that have to do with a blog about the Grand Ducal Family of Luxembourg, you may rightfully ask...
The article, that among other things addresses the unfortunate death of her son Alexis who died last year at the age of 18 in a car accident, also includes pictures of a photoshooting that took place at her home Il Palazzo in Sant Angelo d'Alife, Italy. Not only Archduchess Sophie, her son Maximilian and her daughter Larissa posed for the pictures but also friends of her children. Among them, and now we finally come to the reason the article made it onto the blog, Princess Marie-Astrid of Liechtenstein. Princess Marie-Astrid is the daughter of Princess Margaretha of Liechtenstein (nee Luxembourg).

So, just venture over to youkioske and have a look at it. The article spans from page 6 to page 18, the photos of Marie-Astrid can be found on page 10/11 and 13.


A big thank you to your and my fellow Luxaholic Rocio for calling attention to the article.