Princess Máxima, the wife of Crown Prince Willem-Alexander, has won the Machiavelli prize for her role in strengthening the popularity of the monarchy. The Machiavelli Prize is awarded to people who excel in public communication.

“My husband and I are only able to do our work thanks to the authority of my mother-in-law [Queen Beatrix] which she has built up over 32 years,” she said. The princess explained that the royal family work as a team, which is why she hesitated about accepting the prize.

The princess was also praised for rejuvenating the monarchy. But she passed that off as a continual process which did not depend on one person. She said that although she was often given the benefit of the doubt in her role as princess, she still had to prove herself.

The Machiavelli foundation described Princess Máxima as “a great communicator”. An example of this came during the announcement of her engagement to Prince Willem-Alexander, when she expressed herself in Dutch to the assembled press despite having moved only recently to the Netherlands from Argentina. Her description of one of her husband’s blunders as “een beetje dom" (a bit stupid) has become a common expression in modern Dutch.

(nc/mw)

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