Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands abdicates

**Lamplighter** Mon Jan 28, 2013 6:14 pm

Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands to abdicate for son

Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands has announced her abdication in favour of her son, Prince Willem-Alexander.

The queen made the announcement in pre-recorded address broadcast on Dutch television.

The queen, who is approaching her 75th birthday, said she had been thinking about this moment for several years.

She said the responsibility of being the monarch had not been too great, but now was "the moment to lay down my crown".

Queen Beatrix has been head of state since 1980, when her mother abdicated.

Prime Minister Mark Rutte is also due to address the nation.

Queen Beatrix is the sixth monarch from the House of Orange-Nassau, which has ruled the Netherlands since the early 19th Century.

Queen Beatrix life and reign

1938: Born in Baarn in the Netherlands as the first daughter to Crown Princess Juliana

1940: Flees to Canada with her mother following the outbreak of World War II, but returns five years later following German surrender.

1966: Marries German aristocrat Claus von Amsberg, a diplomat in the German foreign office.

1980: Ascends the throne following the abdication of her ailing mother, Queen Juliana.

2002: Her husband Prince Claus dies, followed by her mother in 2003 and her father in 2004.

2009: Witnesses the attack on a Queen's Day parade where eight people are killed after a man ploughs his car into a crowd.

2012: Second son Prince Johan Friso is left in a coma after being hit by an avalanche in Austria.

Abdication 'tradition'
Correspondents say her abdication is unlikely to provoke a constitutional crisis. Under Dutch law, the monarch has few powers and the role is considered ceremonial.

In recent decades it has become the tradition for the monarch to abdicate. Queen Beatrix's mother Juliana resigned the throne in 1980 on her 70th birthday, and her grandmother Wilhelmina abdicated in 1948 at the age of 68.

Queen Beatrix will be 75 on Thursday.

She has remained active in recent years, but her reign has also seen traumatic events.

In 2009 a would-be attacker killed eight people when he drove his car into crowds watching the Queen and other members of the royal family in a national holiday parade.

In March last year her second son Prince Johan Friso was struck by an avalanche in Austria and remains in a coma.