(Telegraph) - In a short televised speech, the Dutch Queen said it was time to place the nation “in the hands of a new generation”.
Queen Beatrix turns 75 in just a few days and is already the country’s oldest ever monarch. Both her mother, Queen Julianna, and her grandmother, Queen Wilhelmina, also abdicated and the Dutch do not see being king or queen as a job for life.
“I am not abdicating because this office is too much of a burden, but out of conviction that the responsibility for our nation should now rest in the hands of a new generation,” Queen Beatrix said, in a speech delivered from her Huis ten Bosch palace.
“I am deeply grateful for the great faith you have shown in me in the many years that I could be your Queen,” she added.
The Dutch Queen praised her eldest son, Prince Willem-Alexander, as a talented and capable successor 'fully prepared’ for his future role.
She said he would assume the throne on April 30 at the high point of a year of celebrations to mark the end of the Napoleonic occupation in 1813. The Kingdom of the Netherlands was then established two years later.
Mark Rutte, the Dutch prime minister, also broadcast to the nation to thank Queen Beatrix for her long record of service to the nation. “Since her coronation in 1980s she’s applied herself heart and soul for Dutch society,” he said. “She has grown into a Dutch icon.”
The Queen’s abdication signals the end of the reign of one of Europe’s longest serving monarchs. She assumed the throne in 1980 when her mother, Queen Julianna, stepped down after 32 years. Her grandmother, Queen Wilhelmina, abdicated in 1948 after a reign of 58 years.
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