After-dinner speech by His Excellency the Prime Minister of the Netherlands, Wim Kok, during the dinner hosted by the government in honour of HRH the Prince of Orange and Ms Máxima Zorreguieta on the occasion of the forthcoming Royal Wedding in Amsterdam on Saturday, 2 February 2002

The Royal Bridal Couple, Your Majesty, Your Royal Highnesses, honoured guests,

On behalf of the Council of Ministers of the Kingdom it gives me very great pleasure to extend to you, Your Royal Highness and to you, Ms Zorreguieta, a very warm welcome to this government dinner in honour of your forthcoming wedding on Saturday, 2 February 2002. It is a great honour and a pleasure for all of us that you have accepted our invitation to attend this dinner here in the Ridderzaal.

I should also like to address a word of special welcome:

- to you, Your Majesty and to you, Your Royal Highness Prince Claus;
- to Their Royal Highnesses Prince Johan-Friso, Prince Constantijn, Princess Laurentien, Princess Margriet and Mr Van Vollenhoven;
- and to Mr and Mrs Martín Zorreguieta, Mr Juan and Mrs Inèz Zorreguieta.
We also greatly welcome the presence of all the witnesses and attendants who will be supporting and assisting the Bridal Couple on their wedding day.

Royal Bridal Couple,
I know that I speak on behalf of very many people in the Netherlands, the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba, and on behalf of our compatriots elsewhere in the world, when I express my great pleasure and sincere joy on the union into which you will shortly be entering.

All of us have experienced weddings in our own families and circles of friends. Every wedding is a very special moment in the lives of two people and those dear to them. It is a day which requires a great deal of preparation and to which those involved look forward with a great deal of emotion. Indeed it is a day of emotion, a day which evokes feelings of tenderness and feelings of joy, especially at the moment when the bridal couple exchange their commitment to mutual love and fidelity.

In this respect, your forthcoming wedding is no different from other weddings.

And yet at the same time it is an extraordinary wedding because it concerns the future of the heir to the throne.

From my position as Prime Minister I have come to know you over the past eight years, Your Royal Highness, as you prepared for your future tasks. In doing so, you have shown a particular interest in the fields of water management and the world of international sport.

The announcement of your engagement to Máxima Zorreguieta - born and raised in Argentina - was an important moment, both for you and for all the people of the Netherlands. Our Crown Prince, the Prince of Orange, was to be married. You first got to know your future wife in the imposing and romantic Royal city of Seville, in the land of her forefathers. And it happened in the springtime, the season of love. It was not a case of love at first sight, as I understand it, but it was not long before the initial attraction developed and deepened into true love.

You made your marriage proposal in the winter of 2000/2001. You did it on the ice: a more typically Dutch scene would be hard to imagine. Whilst Máxima was gasping for a steaming mug of hot chocolate you, Your Royal Highness, came to her with roses and champagne.

The splendid exhibition 'Holland Frozen in Time’ is currently on display in the Mauritshuis Royal Cabinet of Paintings here in The Hague. It is an exhibition which demonstrates that the ice has for centuries had the power to make the hearts of people from all walks of life beat faster.

The poet Gerard den Brabander put it like this in his sonnet on ice skating:

br> The citizenry swoops and glides up and down
the brief expanse of densely peopled ice
Their blood runs faster, more elegantly in their veins
a courtly young man kneels tenderly
before his loved one and fastens her skates;
their arms intertwine with love and tenderness
they push off; they swirl hither and forth
and gaze at each other in shining delight.

That is not precisely how it will have happened on 19 January 2001. But it will have been an event full of love and emotion. We have all recently been able to see and hear how – admittedly after some rehearsal - you, Your Royal Highness, made your proposal.

The step which you both took on 30 March 2001 followed a period of careful, well-considered and responsible reflection. Reflection on everything that has to be taken into account when two people set out to prepare themselves for the heavy tasks of the future. It has been my privilege to see this from very close quarters.

It was not an easy period; it was a period with sweet and bitter moments. In marriage, sweetness and bitterness stand as symbols for the union between two people in good times and ill, as the former Dutch Prime Minister Jo Cals said in 1996 when you, Your Majesty, Prince Claus, married Her Majesty the Queen.

The period of engagement is a time to get to know each other as future spouses. For you, Ms Zorreguieta, your engagement also meant embracing a new and still relatively unfamiliar country, with a different culture, a different way of life.

It also meant learning to live with the enormous interest shown in everything you did and everything you do. The way you conducted yourself on 30 March last year, and the trouble you have taken to master our - anything but easy - language, have earned you great esteem in the Netherlands. I would like to convey to you our great respect for the enthusiastic, open, honest and sincere way in which you have continued since then to make every effort to get to know us and to give us an opportunity to get to know you.

The massive public interest during your visits to the twelve provinces and four major cities of the Netherlands are an indication of how eager the people of our country are to get to know you. And your forthcoming visit to the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba in May of this year will undoubtedly also be greeted with great enthusiasm by the population there.

Máxima Zorreguieta, you have stolen the hearts of very many people in our country and in our Kingdom. You have become a Dutch citizen, one of us; you belong with us, and we will be delighted to welcome you as Princess of the Netherlands after your marriage.

Royal Bridal Couple,
On Saturday, 2 February 2002 you will enter into the estate of marriage. It is clear that you have the strength, the will and the conviction to face the future side by side. The people of the Netherlands, the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba share in your happiness.

On behalf of the Council of Ministers of the Kingdom, I had the honour earlier today of presenting you with a wedding gift: two silver sculptures of a rare and attractive Dutch bird. I hope that you will be able to enjoy the gift for many years to come, in happiness and prosperity.

I would now ask everyone to raise their glasses and to wish you, our Royal Bridal Couple, an unforgettable and festive Wedding Day and a future full of happiness, prosperity and health as man and wife.