Magazine / Society / Monarchy / Debate | 28/12/2007

Europe's monarchs must prove their worth

Eight European countries still have constitutional or parliamentarian monarchies as their state form, where the king or queen is regarded as a guarantor of democracy and national unity. But is the monarchy up to this task?

The institution of the monarchy may seem antiquated to people from countries with a republican tradition and constitution, but those who actually live in monarchies are mostly happy with this form of state. "Monarchy is old-fashioned, illogical and undemocratic. It is out of place in the twenty-first century," was BBC journalist Jeremy Paxman's comment when Stephan Frears' film "The Queen" was released in March 2007. At the same time Paxman describes how he became a sceptical royalist: "It's a fact that many of the happiest and least corrupt societies in Europe are monarchies."

The royal family at the military parade held for Belgium's National Day.
AP: Photo

Sweden: the people's king

Those societies include Denmark, Sweden and Norway, which have had no trouble combining the welfare state with economic growth, or monarchy with democracy. "The so 'godless', enlightened, hierarchy-eschewing northern Europeans are obviously attached to their monarchs," Anne Rentzsch, Scandinavia correspondent for the Austrian Standard, observed on 20 November 2007. "It is precisely because there is really nothing at stake that the Dutch and Scandinavian monarchies are such good fixed points on which to peg national identity and jubilation," Tim Schleider commented in an article for the Deutsche Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung back in 1997: "People can cheer them on simply because they know there is no political price to pay for doing so."

Scandinavia's monarchs, Renztsch continued, perform their purely representative function with "a successful combination of proximity to the people and glamour." She added that among these powerless kings Carl Gustaf of Sweden is the most powerless of them all. The royal children go to normal schools, the royal family pays normal taxes, the little bit of glamour is provided by not always terribly royal weddings and fast cars, and even the king himself is an almost normal citizen.

Mats Wiklund from the Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter reported on 11 July 2007 on a survey showing that 64 percent of all Swedes would welcome it if the king retired at 65. Wiklund commented: "That does not, of course, constitute a vote of no confidence in the currently reigning monarch, but is simply typical of the Swedish mentality of equality. They think Carl Gustaf should do the same as everyone else."

The British crown jewels

The British Queen Elizabeth II, who has been on the throne for 54 years, is rather less close to the people even though she is extremely popular. Britain, the motherland of democracy, is a stable monarchy. The British political scientist John Gray expressed the conviction in The Observer on 29 July 2007 that: "The monarchical constitution we have today – a mix of antique survivals and postmodern soap opera – may be absurd, but it enables a diverse society to get along without too much friction."

British film director Stephan Frears, who has erected a memorial to the Queen in the form of a film, comes to the conclusion that the monarchy as an institution is contradictory, but it works. In an interview with Daniel Khafif in January 2007 he explained: "What allows the royal family to survive in any age is the principle of divided powers of our parliamentary monarchy: Divide et impera! Or you could say, power through weakness! The Queen is not in the executive. She does not need to act, she lets other people act. Much easier."

But there are other reasons, too, for the survival of the British monarchy. Historians support the thesis, as Laura Smith-Sparks reported on the BBC in April 2006, that the British aristocracy relinquished its power rather early on in order to preserve its privileges. And in his analysis Tim Schleider identified a further characteristic of the British monarchy: "If one leaves aside luminaries like Elizabeth I, for long periods there were such feeble-minded figures on the British throne that the House of Lords and the House of Commons had no other choice than to steadily assume ever more responsibility themselves if the country was not to sink mercilessly into chaos.... Alongside the fundamental conservatism of many British people this is another reason for clinging on to the royal family – for ultimately it is not a constitution but the person of the monarch who stands for democracy."

Spain: the king as defender of democracy

In Spain King Juan Carlos is regarded as the guarantor of the country's democracy. He came to the throne in 1975 following the death of the Spanish dictator Franco and owes his reputation above all to his intervention in the military coup in Madrid in 1981. Peter Gaupp described the Spanish model in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung on 12 December 2007: "Part of the pact for a peaceful 'transición' was that the king restricted himself to a representative role and left the business of government to elected politicians." In return, however, his person and his function must not be questioned.

More recently this pact has begun to weaken. In 2007 a growing number of the people began to ask whether the king was really entitled to play the role of head of state and head of the army, as Diane Cambon reported in the French newspaper Le Figaro on 22 October 2007. The criticism came from various quarters. While the arch-Catholic radio station Cope started a polemic against the king, it was above all regional nationalists who were responsible for public burnings of the national flag and an effigy of the king. In response the conservative daily ABC felt itself obliged to defend the Spanish monarchy. On 27 September 2007 it wrote: "In a state like Spain, which has serious problems with separatism and an unclear division of its territory, attacks like this are unacceptable – above all against an institution that more than any other embodies the historical unity of the nation."

Belgium: the king as maker of governments

Guaranteeing the historical unity of the nation is also a task that falls to the Belgian King Albert II. Belgium's institutional balance is delicate: there are no fewer than six regional governments and parliaments, and as the Flemish and Walloons become ever more divided, it has proved impossible for many months for them to agree on a national government. At the same anti-royalist tendencies on both sides have become allied with the separatist cause. Some Walloons feel drawn towards republican France, while in Flanders it is above all the right-wing extremist Vlaams Belang that challenges King Albert II's right to represent Belgium.

"The monarchy has become the staple holding together a state that is drifting apart, and the king has become the most important, indeed the last real Belgian in a country that has no common language and not even a national party," Hannelore Croll wrote in the German newspaper Die Welt on 4 December 2007. No wonder the king is expected to do more than just stand aloof of all interests – he is expected to bring them together and help form a government. To date, however, Albert II has done little to meet these demands: "His debut as an intermediary in the current political drama has gone badly wrong," Croll wrote.

The Utrecht lawyer Marc Uyttendaele considered what consequences this might have in the Belgian newspaper Le Soir on 12 November 2007, and accused Albert II of allowing himself to be made use of for political purposes: "Some will be sorely tempted to say that there is no need for a king who is incapable of raising the standard of debate and forcing the political players to take a loftier view."

Bulgaria: an Elected Monarch

Whether as a figure for the nation to identify with or as a guarantor of democracy – not all European countries with a monarchist tradition have decided to keep their kings nowadays. Although some East European countries considered reintroducing the monarchy following the fall of communism this did not actually happen in practice. Nevertheless, some exiled kings or their successors have returned to politics and founded parties.

Of these the Bulgarian ex-king Simeon II, alias Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, has been politically most successful. From 2001 until 2005 he was the elected prime minister of his country. Until recently his party, the National Movement Simeon II, was a junior partner in the Bulgarian grand coalition. After that, however, it became divided by internal disputes and left the government at the beginning of December 2007.

Emil Spachijski commented dispassionately on the episode in the daily Sega on 4 December 2007. "It has become clear that only the king enjoys freedom – namely the freedom to do whatever he pleases. Simeon disguised himself as a liberal but he thinks and acts like a king. I'm glad that Bulgaria is no longer a monarchy. Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha governed for four years. Now he is history."

Sabine Seifert

Sabine Seifert was an editor for euro|topics. She studied German studies and History before going on to work as a cultural editor at the tageszeitung ...
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