Prince Laurent of Belgium
| ||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||
Prince Laurent of Belgium (Laurent Benoît Baudouin Marie) was born on October 19, 1963, in Brussels, Belgium, to King Albert II and Queen Paola of the Belgians (the then Prince and Princess of Liège). His godparents are Don Bettino Rocasoli and Duchess Sophie von Arenberg.
He was educated at the Royal Cadet High School and at the Royal Military Academy. Prince Laurent is very involved with animal welfare and the environment. This, together with a relative lack of interest in protocol, has caused him to be dubbed, probably unfairly, by elements of the popular Belgian press as 'écolo-gaffeur'. He is President of the Royal Institute for the Sustainable Management of Natural Resources and the Promotion of Clean Technologies and President of the Prince Laurent Foundation for the Welfare of Domestic and Wild Animals. Prince Laurent is currently an ambassador for Future Harvest, a Washington, D.C. based agricultural research association.
He used to be third in line to the throne, but this changed when the constitution was altered so that women would enjoy the same succession rights as men. A rumour has it that this was done on instigation of King Baudouin I, who is said to have disliked Laurent because he did not share the king's strict religious views. He is now 12th in line to the Belgian throne.
Prince Laurent was promoted to the rank of Ship-of-the-Line Captain on 26 June 2004.
Marriage and children
Prince Laurent and Miss Claire Coombs, born in Bath, England, but living in Belgium since childhood, were married on April 12, 2003. Miss Coombs was also given the title of Princess of Belgium upon her marriage.
Laurent and Claire have three children:
- Louise Sophie Mary, b. 6 February 2004.
- Nicolas Casimir Marie, b. 13 December 2005.
- Aymeric Auguste Marie, b. 13 December 2005.
Involvement in corruption scandal
In December 2006, Laurent's name surfaced in a corruption scandal in which funds of the Belgian Navy were spent on the Prince's villa (Villa Clémentine) in Tervuren. Although the investigating magistrates deny that Laurent was personally implicated, various of the accused have implicated the prince in the press.
On 5 January, 2007, it became known that the King had signed a special royal decree, making it possible for Laurent to be called up as a witness in the corruption trial which was to start January 8. One of the defendants immediately used this to subpoena the prince.[1] During the evening of January 8, the prince was interrogated by the federal police. On January 9 Laurent appeared in court where he testified at the corruption trial that he had no reason to suspect the funding of his renovations could be illegal.[2]
Media reports in March 2007 suggested that Laurent was no longer welcome at the royal palace, possibly due to his role in the corruption scandal.[1]
Against this, it may be recalled that there is some tradition in the Belgian press and among politicians to magnify out of proportion perceived shortcomings among members of the Belgian Royal Family. For example, Laurent's elder brother, Prince Philippe, Duke of Brabant has been pursued to a sometimes merciless extent for what may be no more than lack of dexterity among some of his advisers; and the Princess de Rethy (d. 2002) had in her younger days been pursued by some deputies who turned parliamentary sessions into unedifying and arguably irrelevant debates about her necklines. [3] Laurent's difficulties may therefore to some extent be said to belong to the territory of those who fulfil a non-partisan role in Belgian public life and are thus unable fully to defend themselves publicly to charges which do not necessarily add significantly to the sum of human knowledge.
| ||||||||||
References
- ^ "No longer welcome". flandersnews.be. 2007-03-27. Retrieved 2007-03-28.