Queen Margrethe II of Denmark will abdicate on 14 January after 52 years on the throne, and her eldest son Crown Prince Frederik will succeed her.
The 83-year-old queen announced her decision in her New Year’s Eve speech. Margrethe II took the throne in 1972. She is the longest-lived monarch in Europe after Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II died in September 2022. The Queen underwent successful back surgery in February. She said in the speech on Sunday:
The surgery naturally gave rise to thinking about the future – whether the time had come to leave the responsibility to the next generation. I have decided that now is the right time. On 14 January 2024 – 52 years after I succeeded my beloved father – I will step down as queen of Denmark. I leave the throne to my son, Crown Prince Frederik.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen confirmed the decision in a press release. He paid tribute to the monarch, expressing “heartfelt gratitude to Her Majesty the Queen for her lifelong devotion and tireless efforts for the good of the Kingdom.”
In Denmark, official power is vested in an elected parliament and its government. The monarch is expected to remain outside party politics, representing the nation through traditional duties ranging from state visits to celebrating national day.
Margrethe was born in 1940. She is one of Denmark’s most popular public figures. The 1.82m (6ft) tall, chain-smoking monarch often walked the streets of Copenhagen virtually unaccompanied and won the admiration of Danes for her warm manners as well as her talents as a linguist and designer.
She became heir to her father in 1953 at the age of 31, after a constitutional amendment allowed women to inherit the throne. In 1967, she married French diplomat Henri de Laborde de Monpezat, who served as her royal consort until his death in 2018.
The couple’s two sons are Crown Prince Frederik, who will become King Frederik X, and Prince Joachim. Frederik married Mary Elizabeth Donaldson, an Australian, in 2004.
A keen skier, as a princess she was a member of the Danish Women’s Air Force unit, taking part in judo competitions and endurance trials in the snow. Even as she aged, Margrethe remained resilient.
In 2011, at the age of 70, she visited Danish troops in southern Afghanistan wearing a military jumpsuit. After becoming monarch, she travelled across the country and regularly visited Greenland and the Faroe Islands, two semi-independent territories that are part of the Danish kingdom.
