Monaco’s man with a plan takes his place centre stage

Freddie Sayers

10 October 2007

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Prince Albert has big plans for the principality

And that is just locally. Due to a revised treaty with France, Monaco is now permitted to have its own diplomatic core and so expand internationally. In September, Prince Albert was in Washington DC to open the new embassy there, and last week he opened the first international outpost in Britain — the Maison de Monaco on Upper Grosvenor Street — and signed a collateral agreement between the London and Monaco Chambers of Commerce. As demonstrated by Dubai, a small land mass is not a barrier to economic might: there is no reason, one day, why there should not be a Monaco-based private bank or a Casino de Monte Carlo in every wealthy city in the world.

The fourth step in the five-point plan is crucial to the success of steps one to three: raising the corporate profile of the firm. In order for Monaco to grow, it must be seen as a proper country, and its sovereign leader seen as a power-player first and a polo-player second. This is why Prince Albert has been racking up meetings with world leaders throughout his two-year tenure as head of state. Not only Prince Charles and Prince Andrew, but Jacques Chirac, Boris Yeltsin, Nicolas Sarkozy, and most recently, the Siegfried & Roy of the International Political Circus, Bill Clinton and Tony Blair. I asked the Prince what the point of all this was. ‘We are a sovereign independent country,’ he told me. ‘We may be small in size but we are to be taken seriously, and be recognised by the international community. We will engage in the great debates of the time.’

And so to the fifth and final step in Prince Albert’s relaunch of Monaco Inc and the sign of any truly modern, global corporation: his corporate social responsibility mission. Despite — or perhaps because of — the Monaco Grand Prix and the big boats and the consumer excess of his home state, Prince Albert is passionately devoted to the environmental cause. His first action as head of state was to sign Monaco up to the Kyoto protocol (which he describes as a ‘moral imperative’), and soon afterwards he undertook an expedition to retrace his great-great-grandfather’s steps to the Lilliehook Glacier near the North Pole. The Monaco Yacht Show has been carbon-neutral since he took office, and he is considering a congestion charge scheme for the city of Monte Carlo.

For a final flourish, the Prince has launched the Prince Albert II Foundation — funded by contributions both from his personal fortune and the government of Monaco — dedicated to protecting the environment and encouraging sustainable development. It reflects the global scope of his ambition: with directors from 15 different countries (including John Gummer and the Crown Prince of Qatar), it funds projects as diverse as village hydraulics in Burkina Faso and the reintroduction of the bearded vulture to the Alps. With pledges at last month’s Clinton Global Initiative in New York and as patron of the UN Billion Tree Campaign, the Prince is setting about establishing himself as a world leader on environmental issues.

The Principality of Monaco has been in the hands of the Grimaldi family for over 700 years, and for the last 49 of these Prince Albert has been laying plans. All credit to him that, instead of lounging in his casino, he is actioning his blue-sky thinking about how to make his ancient asset count in a modern world.