The Spanish Royal Palace expected its first-ever budget cut next year as the king and queen join everyday people in biting the bullet of austerity in hard economic times, an official said yesterday.
King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia have already scaled back by shortening their summer vacation at their holiday residence on the Mediterranean island of Mallorca and sailing less on the royal yacht Fortuna.
This year the Royal Palace's budget was frozen at the 2009 level of e8.9 million (R81.7m), and the palace's 140 employees joined the rest of Spain's civil servants in seeing their salaries cut by as much as 15 percent in June as part of an austerity plan.
But next year the palace was expecting an official, full-blown reduction in the palace's slice of the national budgetary pie, which would be unveiled later this month, a palace official said.
The official denied newspaper reports that King Juan Carlos - a soft-spoken, avuncular monarch who holds a figurehead role - had himself requested the budget cut, saying it was more of a negotiation with the government.
Spain's king and queen are not the first royals in Europe to succumb to the hard times. In July, Britain said its budget crisis was squeezing royal finances, as Queen Elizabeth II cut spending and put off repairs. - Sapa-AP