I'm looking for practical arguments on whether or not the monarchy should remain, not ideological ones.
Our royal family unite the country within the different social layers. The family is popular among the right wingers, left wingers, populist voters, central wingers, foreigners, Christians, high class, low class, middle class, buisiness people, military, young and old people, etc, etc,. Currently in the lastest polls 70% are pro-monarch and 25% are pro-republican. Our rightwing minister-president Rutte is maybe popular within his own party, but surly not popular from people who are voted for other parties. Also the last years many cabinets collapsed. Between 2002-2012 there where five general elections. So can we effort many presidents elections in the Netherlands?
We are a small nation in the world, we need to profile. Queen Beatix was known throughout the world because she was 30 years our queen. She was higly respected by many huge countries such as Russia, USA, China, etc. If we were are republic the last 30 years, we could had six or seven unknown presidents. Because do the world know our last 5 minister-presidents?
In short: No it is not democratic. But the system works why to change it? Is it so bad to live in (western) country with a head of state such as The Netherlands, Belgium, Danmark, Sweden, UK, Spain. Norway, Australia, Luxembourg, Japan, Canada, New Zealand, etc, etc, Are republic countries better then these countries?
Our King unite the country and open doors in other countries more the our (mister no body) minister-president Rutter.
First of all, tradition is a very strong reason for a monarchy.
And we have been happy with the queens we have had and the king now is generally liked as well.
(The kings before the queens were less liked but that is a long time ago.)
There are no clear practical arguments for or against a monarchy without some ideology coming in, and most of all the preference of the person talking.
One of the arguments often used against monarchy is the cost. But when you compare the cost of the European monarchies with the cost of the European chosen heads of state and their elections and associated cost, I feel that the cost of a monarchy is not that much.
And when you compare it to the circus and the impact of the USA presidental elections and change of almost everybody in office when there is a new president, I feel we have the much better deal.
The most important role of a monarch these days is to represent the country abroad.
Willem Alexander is doing a good one for that as far as I can see and his queen is doing well as well.
Secondary to that is being a figure head for the politics within the country, but how much they do in that depends on the policies that are within the country. In recent years there have been changes and the king has less to do with the Dutch politics than his mother and grand mother used to. Which I think was a bad move.
Politics can use someone who is above the parties.
No. It is no use and a year ago the king wasn't even allowed to advise in the formation of government cabinet. What they say is composed by the Prime Minister. They sang their song and are rich enough. It being such a stable factor diverts from real problems like lack of justice and terrible state management.
Willem Alexander and Maxima are heavily criticized for their luxurious life style. They have numerous villa's in different parts of the world and all these villa's require security, paid by taxpayers . They travel there at taxpayer expense in government airplanes . They spend more time abroad than at home(in any of their several palaces) in the Netherlands . Compared to the British royal family , they cost a lot more for a tiny country. They demand privacy to the extreme and have sued newspapers for publishing photo's of their children , completely normal and flattering photo's. I suspect their daughter will never be queen of the Netherlands.
