Denmark’s Queen Margrethe II announces she will abdicate the throne on Jan. 14

Denmark’s Queen Margrethe II announced Sunday that she strategies to abdicate after 52 decades and hand around the throne to her son, Crown Prince Frederik.

The queen, who is Europe’s longest-reigning living monarch, announced for the duration of her New Year’s speech that she would abdicate on Jan. 14, the anniversary of her accession to the throne at age 31 pursuing the demise of her father, King Frederik IX.

Margrethe, 83, stated the again medical procedures she underwent in early 2023 led to “feelings about the foreseeable future” and when to go on the responsibilities of the crown to her son. “I have made the decision that now is the ideal time,” she explained in her speech.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen compensated tribute to her in a assertion, providing a “heartfelt thank you to Her Majesty the Queen for her lifelong devotion and tireless endeavours for the Kingdom.”

Margrethe is the “epitome of Denmark” Frederiksen’s assertion browse, and “throughout the decades has put words and feelings into who we are as a persons and as a nation.”

The 6-foot-tall (1.82-meters-tall), chain-cigarette smoking Margrethe has been a single of the most well-known community figures in Denmark, in which the monarch’s purpose is mainly ceremonial. She frequently walked the streets of Copenhagen practically unescorted and received the admiration of Danes for her warm manners and for her abilities as a linguist and designer.

A keen skier, she was a member of a Danish women’s air drive device as a princess, taking aspect in judo courses and endurance assessments in the snow. Margrethe remained tricky even as she grew more mature. In 2011, at age 70, she visited Danish troops in southern Afghanistan putting on a army jumpsuit.

As monarch, she crisscrossed the place and on a regular basis frequented Greenland and the Faeroe Islands — the two semi-impartial territories that are component of the Danish Realm — and was fulfilled just about everywhere by cheering crowds.

Denmark has Europe’s oldest ruling monarchy, which traces its line back to the Viking king Gorm the Outdated, who died in 958. Despite the fact that Magrethe is head of state, the Danish Constitution strictly ruled out her involvement in social gathering politics.

However the queen was plainly perfectly-versed in law and knew the contents of the legislation she was termed on to indicator.

She gained coaching in French and English from her earliest a long time, as perfectly as Swedish from her mother. In addition to 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 given that his beginning on May perhaps 26, 1968, Frederik André Henrik Christian has been the heir to the Danish throne.

He is the oldest son of Queen Margrethe and her late French-born spouse, Prince Henrik, who died in February 2018. Frederik, 55, has a young brother, Prince Joachim.

Considering the fact that the age of 18, he has served as regent any time his mother was exterior the kingdom and carried out official obligations, shaking arms with 1000’s and obtaining overseas dignitaries.

“In the new yr, Crown Prince Frederik will be proclaimed king. Crown Princess Mary will turn into queen. The kingdom will have a new regent and a new royal couple. We can glance forward to all of this in the know-how that they are all set for the duty and the endeavor,” the prime minister’s statement reported.