Queen Margrethe II proclaims her abdication from Christian IX’s Palace, Amalienborg Fortress, in Copenhagen, on Sunday, Dec. 31 2023, throughout her New Yr’s handle.
Keld Navntoft/Ritzau Scanpix by way of AP
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Keld Navntoft/Ritzau Scanpix by way of AP
Queen Margrethe II proclaims her abdication from Christian IX’s Palace, Amalienborg Fortress, in Copenhagen, on Sunday, Dec. 31 2023, throughout her New Yr’s handle.
Keld Navntoft/Ritzau Scanpix by way of AP
STOCKHOLM, Sweden — Denmark’s Queen Margrethe II introduced Sunday that she plans to go away the throne to make manner for her son, Crown Prince Frederik.
The queen introduced throughout her New Yr’s speech that she would abdicate on Jan. 14th, which is the 52nd anniversary of her personal accession to the throne at age 31 following the demise of her father, King Frederik IX.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen paid tribute to the 83-year-old monarch, providing a “heartfelt thanks to Her Majesty the Queen for her lifelong dedication and tireless efforts for the Kingdom.”
Margrethe is the “epitome of Denmark” Frederiksen’s assertion learn, and “all through the years has put phrases and emotions into who we’re as a individuals and as a nation.”
The 6-foot-tall, chain-smoking Margrethe has been some of the widespread public figures in Denmark, the place the monarch’s position is essentially ceremonial. She usually walked the streets of Copenhagen nearly unescorted and received the admiration of Danes for her heat manners and for her skills as a linguist and designer.
A eager skier, she was a member of a Danish ladies’s air drive unit as a princess, participating in judo programs and endurance checks within the snow. Margrethe remained powerful at the same time as she grew older. In 2011, at age 70, she visited Danish troops in southern Afghanistan carrying a navy jumpsuit.
As monarch, she crisscrossed the nation and repeatedly visited Greenland and the Faeroe Islands, the 2 semi-independent territories that are a part of the Danish Realm, and was met in all places by cheering crowds.
Denmark has Europe’s oldest ruling monarchy, which traces its line again to the Viking king Gorm the Outdated, who died in 958. Though Magrethe is head of state, the Danish Structure strictly dominated out her involvement in occasion politics.
But the queen was clearly well-versed in regulation and knew the contents of the laws she was known as upon to signal.
She obtained coaching in French and English from her earliest years, in addition to Swedish from her mom. Along with archaeology, she studied philosophy, political science and economics at universities in Copenhagen, Aarhus and Cambridge together with the London College of Economics and the Sorbonne in Paris.
Ever since his delivery on Could 26, 1968, Frederik André Henrik Christian has been the inheritor to the Danish throne.
He’s the oldest son of Queen Margrethe and her late French-born husband, Prince Henrik, who died February 2018. Frederik, 55, has a youthful brother, Prince Joachim.
For the reason that age of 18, he has served as regent each time his mom was outdoors the dominion and carried out official duties, shaking palms with hundreds and receiving international dignitaries.
“Within the new yr, Crown Prince Frederik will likely be proclaimed king. Crown Princess Mary will change into queen. The dominion could have a brand new regent and a brand new royal couple. We are able to look ahead to all of this within the data that they’re prepared for the accountability and the duty,” the prime minister’s assertion mentioned.