Prinsjesdag and Covid: What to expect

Today is Prinsjesdag, or Budget Day, in the Netherlands. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the day will look much different than usual. The Royals won't tour through The Hague in their carriage, and there will be no balcony moment after the King's speech. Everything will happen out of sight of the public, with both the Binnenhof and the Grote Kerk screened off in an attempt to keep spectators away, RTL Nieuws reports.

The annual King's speech will be held in the Grote Kerk, instead of the Ridderzaal, because the church is bigger so more people can attend while social distancing. The King and Queen will arrive by car, instead of carriage. Parliamentarians will be taken to the Grote Kerk by bus.

In order to limit the number of attendees, the MPs won't be able to bring their partners to the speech this year. The military honor guard was also scaled down significantly - usually around 2,200 soldiers are deployed around Budget Day. Today there will be 50, insiders told the broadcaster.

The parliamentarians will depart from the Binnenhof at noon, and the military guard of honor will take position at the Grote Kerk. King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima will depart from Noordeinde Palace to the Grote Kerk at 1:10 p.m. They're expected to arrive at 1:20 p.m. At around 1:25 p.m., the King will give his speech. At 1:45 p.m., the parliamentarians will return to the Binnenhof. And at 3:00 p.m. the Minister of Finance will present next year's national budget to the Tweede Kamer, the lower house of Dutch parliament.

Despite the pandemic, skipping Budget Day was not an option, Carla van Baalen, professor of parliamentary history, said to RTL Nieuws. "The Constitution states that every year on the third Tuesday of September, in a meeting of the Tweede and Eerste Kamer [the Dutch Senate] together, the King will give an explanation of the policy that the government will pursue."

This is also not the first time that the Budget Day schedule is more sober. That happened three times in the post-war years. In the first years after the Second World War, in 1974 due to a hostage situation at the French embassy, and in 2001 after the 9/11 attacks in the United States.