A royal weekend of symbolism

Wow, what a weekend – a royal wedding, beatification of a saint and now a martyrdom. What century are we living in again?

Last night's news that after a decade of efforts the United States has at long last killed Osama Bin Laden is just about the only news story people are talking about today. This is to be expected for such a symbolically important event – regardless of its actual real-world impact. The news finished off a weekend when the US was paying more attention than normal to events going on abroad, with the royal wedding in London and the huge mass in Rome that declared Pope John Paul II ready to be a saint. All three of these events were short on real-world impact but high on symbolic value.

Belgium's rebel prince

The youngest son of Belgian King Albert II is in hot water again after conducting unauthorised diplomatic missions in Africa, including a secret meeting with a leader of the Libyan rebel forces and an audience with the president of Belgium's former colony the Congo, all without any diplomatic oversight. The King had explicitly told him not to go to the Congo.

It's not the first time that Prince Laurent has been in trouble, but it looks like this time he could be facing serious consequences. Even his father, who has defended himin the past, has let it be known that he is displeased with his son's actions. Yesterday Yves Leterme, Belgium's 'caretaker' prime minister while the country has no government, that he will prepare new restrictions on the prince which will mean that if he engages in such behaviour again the government can cut of his annual stipend of €300,000.

David Cameron's lucky day

It's been a good day for UK Prime Minister David Cameron. This morning Britain's Prince William announced he will wed his long-time girlfriend Kate Middleton in a lavish royal wedding next year. Cameron was reportedly ecstatic when he announced the engagement to his cabinet, and it's not hard to see why. A royal wedding is exactly the sort of thing the Tories need to lift the spirits of the British public, who are suffering so much from the economic crisis and the budget cuts. In fact the engagement announcement already started fulfilling its role as a much-needed distraction today as it completely drowned out the simultaneous announcement from 10 Downing Street of a raft of new cuts including, ironically, the scrapping of legal aid for poor people getting a divorce. So while the royal family celebrates an upcoming wedding, their subjects learn it will now be harder for them to obtain an equitable separation.

Meanwhile over in Brussels, word came this morning that Cameron may get his wish for a complete freeze in the EU budget after all. Talks between member states and the European Parliament over the 2011 EU budget broke down last night. With no agreement in sight, it will mean that the 2010 budget will have to be used next year. Freezing the EU budget at 2010 levels was exactly what Cameron wanted, though this is probably not the way he wanted to get it. But Brussels was in despair today over the failure to reach an agreement, which will have very serious consequences for the EU. Both the commission and the parliament seemed to be shocked by the deliberate sabotaging of the budget that appears to have been led by the UK with the aid of their Dutch and Danish eurosceptic allies.

It was particularly shocking considering that parliament had broken precedent and completely capitulated to member states' demand that the budget not be raised by more than 3% (the parliament had originally called for a 6% raise). What appears to have happened is that certain member states are using the budget negotiations as a power play, seeking to sideline an increasingly assertive European Parliament that has sought to use the new powers it was granted by the Lisbon Treaty. The irony of the situation was lost on no one in Brussels today. The British Conservatives, who are constantly whining about the "democratic deficit" in the EU, are seeking to marginalise the only directly elected EU institution. And they are willing to play a dangerous game to do so.

Prince-on-Prince Contact

In a shock turn of events, it was revealed on Friday that Prince Charles has been successful in his bid to stop the Qataris from constructing modernist apartment blocks on the site of the old Chelsea Barracks, which is across the street from my flat. As you can imagine my flatmate, who has been intimately involved with the negotiations between our building’s residents and the Qataris, is none too pleased that the concessions he’s worked for two years to get have now gone up in smoke.

So what did it take for Qatari Diar (a real estate firm owned by the Qatari royal family) to abandon their planned development, designed by one of the worlds most prominent architects for a site that they purchased in the most expensive land transaction in British history? From the looks of it, it was a little princely camaraderie. The decision follows communication between Prince Charles and the Emir of Qatar in which the Prince of Wales asked him to stop the modernist development and instead start over with a more classic, traditional design.

So is this really the result of some royal influence, or is the royal contact angle just an over dramatisation by the British press? Right now it’s a bit unclear. As I wrote about in my previous post on this topic, the letter my flatmate received from the prince last month seemed to indicate that he probably didn’t want to see his royal name too associated with this mess - an effort that, judging from the headlines on Friday, clearly failed. One can easily see why he wanted to avoid it though. The heir apparent has been the target of considerable anger following this news, particularly from architects who say he should stop his “meddling”.

However the fact is that Charles was not really the driving force behind the opposition to this plan. The resistance was led by a proactive and energetic residents association (one that my building wasn’t a part of). It was that group, the Chelsea Barracks Action Group, that commissioned the ‘alternative’ Chelsea Barracks blueprint by traditional architect Quinlan Terry that much of the media has presented as being the brainchild of the prince (the one on the right in the above photo, compared to the planned design on the left). The prince, in fact, was really just peripherally involved in this whole dispute, from the looks of it. This was really a victory for CBAG chairwoman Georgie Thorburn, who has pursued this issue with almost messianic zeal over the past year.

But as peripheral as his involvement may have been, was Prince Charles the factor that tipped this in CBAG’s favour in the end? We’ll probably never know, as the intimate chats between royalty aren’t usually public knowledge, especially in Arabia! But what is for certain now is that the Chelsea Barracks site is back to the drawing board, and will continue to lie as a giant pit in the middle of posh Chelsea, with its two abandoned high-rise barrack dorms sticking up like rotting teeth. Not so great for the neighborhood’s aesthetic, but hey, at least I’m not going to be woken up by construction equipment in the morning any time soon!

Incidentally I’m in Amsterdam this week for work, on a press tour of some environmental projects throughout Holland. I’ll try to write a little bit about some of the things I’ve seen later in the week.

What do they teach the Belgians?

Tuesday night I went out for a beer with this Belgian guy I met when I was here in September, Leiven. We were talking about my usual favourite topic of conversation, the EU and European history. He’s pretty strongly anti-US, but I found a lot of his perceptions of the country are just wrong.

I find handling these types of situations to be rather delicate. After all, in correcting their perception and telling them the way it actually is, I don’t want to come off as an arrogant American who thinks he knows everything. But at the same time, it’s not in my nature to look the other way when someone says something that’s factually incorrect.

But this isn’t the point of my story. During the course of the conversation one of the incorrect things he said was that the sinking of the Lusitania by the Germans was what brought the US into World War II (he was so sure of it he even bet money on it, I won £10!). I informed him that it was in fact the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor that brought the US into WWII, and that the sinking of the Lusitania was the cause of our entry into WWI. To my astonishment, he wasn’t even aware the US had participated in WWI! We only ended the war for you, you ingrate! But I digress…