Queen Beatrix’ highly unusual decision to react to Geert Wilder’s remarks has sparked a discussion in the papers.

Travesty
On Sunday the leader of the anti-Islam PVV called the queen’s traditional garb ‘a sad travesty’ and her headscarf a symbol of the suppression of women.
‘There’s not much that surprises me now’ a weary queen Beatrix answered when she was asked by journalists if his comments had surprised her. She made short shrift of his suggestion that by wearing the traditional headscarf on her visit to mosques in Oman and the United Emirates she was condoning the oppression of women. ‘Nonsense’ she said curtly.
The women in the region are anything but oppressed with many of them in responsible jobs or in university education, she said, backed by princess Máxima.
Mosquito
The queen’s uncharacteristic outburst could be taken as just that: an impatient swat at a mosquito that has been hovering around her head for some time. Wilders, the Volkskrant writes, has been critical of several of the queens’ new years’ speeches because he feels they are indirectly attacking him and his party. He also wants the monarch to have less political influence.
But while the queen may have found some relief in ticking off a troublesome subject, it got her into hot water all the same. In its editorial the paper writes ‘It’s great the cabinet allowed the queen to take a stance against Wilders who is making a caricature of what the she says and does at every turn.’ Not that there has been any suggestion that the queen asked the cabinet for permission.
Taste
‘However’, the paper continues, ‘it is to be hoped that she does not develop a taste for speaking her mind publicly. Her position depends on her not getting involved with politics. Her alleged opposition to the way the cabinet formation was heading in 2010 was not very good publicity for the monarchy. It was fun while it lasted but from now on prime minister Mark Rutte is back in the driving seat.’
The Nrc ridicules the three eager PVV members who lost no time asking parliamentary questions on the matter: ‘By adapting her outfit to what is acceptable in a mosque the queen legitimised the ‘repression and discrimination’ of women, the three PVV members concluded with an alacrity and speed that was positively Pavlovian’, the paper writes.
Compromise
But Nrc too, thinks the queen was wrong to be candid. ‘Not because it is no use confronting a man who ignores any facts that may undermine his ideology but because it compromises her constitutional immunity and ministerial responsibility. Her choice of clothes already made abundantly clear who is talking nonsense’.
The paper also has a word to spare for the prime minister who has been embarrassed by the incident because, technically, he is responsible for the epithet ‘nonsense’ directed at the silent partner in his cabinet. It’s not a word he would have used himself, at least not in public. The paper concludes by saying that ministerial responsibility and royal immunity are not compatible especially in the light of Wilders’ anti-monarchy sentiments.
Hounded
Meanwhile the AD quotes ‘sources close to the monarchy’ who say the queen is not about tot be ‘hounded’ out of her job. She would not want to hand over the throne to an inexperienced prince Willem Alexander with the country ‘in a state of political disarray’, the source is quoted as saying.
Another source doubts whether Beatrix will really let a man like Wilders influence the timing of her abdication. ‘She’s seen so many politicians come and go.’
The foreign press have picked up on the story, too. A good thing, the Volkskrant thinks because it will give out the message that ‘we’re not all obsessed with head scarves behind the dikes.’
El País translates ‘nonsense’ as ‘un disparate’. Le Figaro has the queen qualify Wilders’ comments as ‘absurdes’ while Der Spiegel has ‘unsinn’.