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Because of the nature of it, the Belgian Royal House is a pre-eminently federal institution. In principle, it has to take a neutral position between the several Regions and Communities of the Belgian Kingdom, but the entourage of the House comes mainly from Brussels' Franch-speaking society. This is probably the reason behind most of the incidents involving the Royal House.
There is the notorious meeting between King Boudewijn I and José Happart (refer to Voeren ) at a car-park of a highway in 1979. Another incident is the rebuke Luc van den Brande received after expressing his preference for a confederal model for Belgium.
These two litle incidents raise at the Flemish public opinion at least the suspicion that the French-speaking part of Belgium has more credits in the eyes of the Royal House than Flanders. Just as an example, it was no problem at all for Lucien Outers , who, when asked by Manu Ruys whether he considered himself as a Walloon, a French-speaking Belgia or a Representative for Brussels, answered "I feel French", to become a Belgian minister between 1977 and 1980.
Another problem is that all the princes use French as their mother tongue, and that their knowledge of Dutch in general is rather poor.
Nevertheless, under King Albert II there seems to be an amelioration in this case. As a prince, he had a lot of contacts with Flemish entrepreneurs in the commercial missions he led. On the other hand, Queen Paola refused for a long time to learn Dutch, which she qualified as a language for peasants, though the majority of her "subjects" has it as its mother tongue.
King Albert II made a mistake though when he invited Luk Rijckaert for a meeting on the 16th of July, 1996. Luk Rijckaert is the coordinator of the "Front for Unionistic Federalism" and the president of the "Belgian Progressive Socialists". On the same day, the leadership of the Flemish Socialist Party endorsed a statement from Norbert De Batselier , in which the latter made a plea for a more thorough reform of the state and for confederalism.
It doesn't look like things will get better in the next generation. It is well known that Crown Prince Filip doesn't speak Dutch on a very high level, and even though the Royal House tried to convince Flanders that Crown Princess Mathilde did speak Dutch too even though she's from the French-speaking part of Belgium, her knowledge of Dutch is extremely bad, and probably will stay so.
Finally, note that the Belgian Royal House keeps Belgium together not only by its symbolic value, but also by the consequent absence of presidential elections. The most probable scenario for such elections seems to be one in which a Fleming from the CD&V has to compete with a Walloon socialist, if the Walloon socialist even makes it to the second round. It is improbable that Belgium would survive such an election round.