QUEEN MARGRETHE II of Denmark has announced that she will abdicate on 14 January, exactly 52 years after she assumed the throne. 

The 83-year-old monarch made the surprise announcement during her New Year’s Eve speech live on television this evening, citing her age and health issues.

“In two weeks time I have been Queen of Denmark for 52 years,” she said.

That length of time would take its time on anyone, she added. “One cannot undertake as much as one managed in the past.

“On 14 January 2024 – 52 years after I succeeded my beloved father – I will step down as Queen of Denmark.”

She will be succeeded by her eldest son, Crown Prince Frederik. 

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen confirmed the decision in a news release that paid tribute to Margrethe, offering a “heartfelt thank you to Her Majesty the Queen for her lifelong dedication and tireless efforts for the Kingdom”.

Margrethe became queen of Denmark in 1972 following the death of her father, King Frederik IX.

She is the world’s only current reigning queen and the longest-serving monarch in Europe, after the death of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II in September 2022. 

A popular public figure in Denmark, she was a member of a Danish women’s air force unit as a princess, taking part in judo courses and endurance tests in the snow.

“She has managed to be a queen who has united the Danish nation in a time of large changes: globalisation, the appearance of the multicultural state, economic crises in the 1970s, 1980s and again in 2008 to 2015, and the pandemic,” historian Lars Hovebakke Sorensen told AFP.

“The basis of her popularity is that the queen is absolutely non-political,” he said.

A painter as well as a costume and set designer, she has worked with the Royal Danish Ballet and Royal Danish Theatre on numerous occasions.

She studied at Cambridge and the Sorbonne in Paris, and is fluent in English, French, German and Swedish.

She has also translated plays, including Simone de Beauvoir’s “All Men Are Mortal” with her French-born husband under a pseudonym.

She has illustrated several books, including a Danish 2002 edition of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings”, and her paintings have been exhibited in museums and galleries in Denmark and abroad.

In February 2023, she underwent “extensive back surgery”. She resumed her constitutional duties two months later.

While she is Denmark’s head of state, the Danish constitution gives Margrethe no political power and her duties are ceremonial.

With reporting from © AFP 2023