{"id":570400,"date":"2026-02-06T11:50:13","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T11:50:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/570400\/"},"modified":"2026-02-06T11:50:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T11:50:13","slug":"dutch-queen-maxima-training-to-become-army-reservist-at-54","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/570400\/","title":{"rendered":"Dutch Queen M\u00e1xima training to become army reservist at 54"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>  By&amp;nbsp<a href=\"https:\/\/www.euronews.com\/profiles\/1220\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Andreas Rogal<\/a>&amp;nbspwith&amp;nbsp<b>AP, EBU<\/b><\/p>\n<p>\n         Published on<br \/>\n            06\/02\/2026 &#8211; 6:15 GMT+1\n            <\/p>\n<p>Queen M\u00e1xima, the 54-year-old Argentine-born wife of King Willem-Alexander, has started training this week to become a reserve member of her adopted homeland&#8217;s army as the Dutch military seeks to boost recruitment.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBecause the security of the Netherlands can no longer be taken for granted, M\u00e1xima has decided to become a reservist,\u201d the Ministry of Defence said in a statement after she began training on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>Expected to be sworn in later this month, the incoming Dutch coalition government has announced plans to grow the nation&#8217;s militaryfrom some 80,000 to 122,000 staff amid geopolitical turmoil and Russia&#8217;s war in Ukraine on Europe&#8217;s eastern edge.<\/p>\n<p>The Royal House of Orange stated that the queen, \u201clike many others, wants to make a contribution to that security\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>M\u00e1xima is following her own daughter&#8217;s path here. Crown Princess Amalia, the heir to the Dutch throne, completed her basic military training as a volunteer reservist in the army last month.<\/p>\n<p>Defence spokesperson Klaas Meijer praised the Queen&#8217;s decision, saying enlisting was her choice, \u201cbut we are of course very proud that she is doing this and hope that other people will think, \u2018hey, this is something I could do.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The defence ministry says her training will comprise \u201call the practical and theoretical military components necessary to become a reservist. These include physical resilience, self-defence, marksmanship, map reading, and military law.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Once she has completed training, she will be given the rank of lieutenant-colonel and will \u201cdeploy wherever needed\u201d, the defence ministry said.<\/p>\n<p>Royals across Europe have a long tradition of enlisting, but only recently also across genders. Five years ago, Princess Elisabeth, the heir to the Belgian throne, signed up to do a year in military school in Brussels to help her prepare for her royal duties. <\/p>\n<p>Video editor<strong> \u2022 Jerry Fisayo-Bambi<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By&amp;nbspAndreas Rogal&amp;nbspwith&amp;nbspAP, EBU Published on 06\/02\/2026 &#8211; 6:15 GMT+1 Queen M\u00e1xima, the 54-year-old Argentine-born wife of King Willem-Alexander,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":570401,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5],"tags":[20179,118082,6576,50,34696,248104,248103,103],"class_list":["post-570400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world","tag-army","tag-breda","tag-netherlands","tag-news","tag-queen","tag-reservist","tag-royal-families","tag-world"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116023540105866934","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=570400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570400\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/570401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=570400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=570400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=570400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}