Margaret abdicates in favor of her son: the 7 differences between our King Emeritus and the Emeritus of Denmark

The image of Margarita with Don Juan Carlos was taken in Stockholm, eight years ago, during the events for the 70th birthday of Carlos Gustavo of Sweden. In the photo we see that Doña Sofía now looks the other waya symbol of what the body asks us to do if we compare the abdication of the Danish Monarch with the one that our Emeritus was forced to carry out ten years ago.

Margaret II of Denmark, The living monarch with the longest time on the throne, closes 52 years of reign this Sunday to abdicate in favor of her firstborn, Prince Frederick. In reality, the vast majority of Spaniards are hardly affected by this information (historical, on the other hand). However, the news comes to us after the scandal involving the Mexican Genoveva Casanova with the heir who this Sunday replaces his mother at the head of the State and the Church.

But above all, it is inevitable to compare the abdications of your head of state and ours, almost ten years ago. The Danish Emerita is leaving with a bang. While our Emeritus did it from behind and even a decade later she continues to harass the Crown with birthday celebrations and parallel cuts like the one on the cover of Hello magazines this week.

Both, Margarita and Juan Carlos, are contemporaries, heads of European and democratic monarchies, with family ties. On the other hand, and given that we are faced with another European democracy whose form of State is similar to ours, parallels arise and that is why we observe with some attention around us: it is greatly harmed Juan Carlos de Borbón y Borbón when we make an inevitable comparison with Margrethe Alexandrine Þorhildur Ingrid. Felipe's father also abdicated his firstborn, in 2014, but for very different reasons than those that have led the current monarch to pass the throne to his son.

One leaves through the front door, with an overwhelming majority of public opinion in his favor, an impeccable track record and rather being victim and firefighter in the scandals of her husband and her children, instead of starring in them. While in Spain we observe with shame or hide how public money paid for and hid the extramarital loves of Juan Carlos I, with the connivance of presidents of Government or ministers, or how her colossal and mysterious personal fortune grew in the shadow of her reign, in Denmark Margaret's subjects fear that the impeccable image of her Royal House will be contaminated by the conduct of Frederick, the “turbo prince”, whom not only have affected skirt scandals but also real estate purchases.

Better, a woman on the Throne

The bad news, let's be clear, is that we exchange a woman for a man. The good news is that we have an impeccable king and a woman arrives in the line of succession. The examples of the United Kingdom or Denmark itself are illustrative. Isabel II, it is known, considered abdication and did not do it. Margarita, 83, unexpectedly announced in her New Year's Eve speech that she would leave the throne, alluding to health problems and the need to make way for the new generation, just on the day of her birthday. 52 years since his accession to the throne.

In the Nordic monarchies it is not customary to abdicate: the last precedent in Denmark dates back to 1146, when Eric III abandoned the throne to retire to a monastery.

The simple ceremony and the change in the head of state

Prince Frederick and his wife Princess Mary will leave this Sunday by car to the Amalienborg palace complex and, two minutes later, the queen will do the same in a carriage, heading to Christiansborg Castle, 1.5 kilometers away and the seat of Parliament.

There begins at 2:00 p.m. (peninsular time) a Council of State in which Margaret II will sign her declaration of abdication: at the moment she does so, the change in the throne will be effected, although the proclamation itself of Frederick which is carried out by the head of Government on duty, will not take place as such until 3:00 p.m.

After the words of the prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, Frederick

Before the proclamation, and after the succession becomes effective, Frederick and the new Queen Mary will hold a small reception at which Frederiksen and the presidents of Greenland and the Faroe Islands, Danish autonomous territories, among others, will be present.

There will be no royal guests from other countries at the events, following Danish tradition, which also does not include any coronation, the Royal House has reported, but Federico will be accompanied by his younger brother, Prince Joachim; and, to Mary, his older sister.

The authorities have not given us estimated figures, but we have been able to calculate that thousands of Danes are expected to come to the capital to follow the historic event: many hotels have fully posted the sign and, at the beginning of the week, there were barely any tickets left. by plane and train to the capital.

The weather forecasts give a respite or tribute to the outgoing Monarch: for Copenhagen they point to a dry day with 2-3 degrees when the events begin, temperatures significantly higher than those of past days.

When the new kings and Queen Margaret, who will retain her title, are back in Amalienborg, the transfer of royal standards will then take place from the palace of Christian IX, the residence of the outgoing monarch, to that of Frederick VIII.

Margarita will not have to go into self-imposed exile, she will not have to defend herself in court and she has no known love or financial scandals: rather she has had to suffocate them.

At that time, Denmark will have a Queen Emeritus, like us, although she will be the Queen Mother, she will not have to self-exile, and she will be able to be in the palace or represent her country with honors whenever she pleases. She was born on April 16, 1940 in Amalienborg Palace in Copenhagen, just a week after the invasion of Denmark by Nazi Germany on April 9, 1940. Don Juan Carlos de Borbón y Borbón was not born in his country, but in Rome, on January 5, 1938, in the middle of the Civil War.

Don Juan Carlos was idolized for his work in the Transition. Not only in Spain. Magazine Time I consider it one of the most unlikely and inspiring heroes of 20th century freedom after confronting the rebels and defeating the attempted military coup of February 1981 that sought to subvert the young post-Franco democracy.

Unfortunately, his image began to deteriorate as a result of the Nóos case, which directly implicated Infanta Cristina, and culminated with the imprisonment of Iñaki Urdangarin. But it was in 2012 when a pathetic downhill slope began: Don Juan Carlos suffered an accident in Botswana, and it was learned that he had traveled to the African country to participate in an elephant hunt sponsored by influential Saudi businessmen and organized by his lover. Corinna Larsen.

In June 2014, she abdicated to her son Philip under very different conditions than those under which Margaret II of Denmark will do the same this Sunday. In Spain it was decreed that Juan Carlos would retain for life and honor the title of king, the treatment of Majesty and honors analogous to those of the heir to the Crown. But five years later, in June 2019, he announced that he was definitively abandoning institutional life, and a year later, due to growing suspicions of corruption, he was publicly humiliated and stripped by Felipe VI of the budget allocation that he had been receiving from the House. King.

On August 3, 2020, the King's House made public Juan Carlos's willingness to leave Spain due to the public repercussion generated by “certain past events” in his “private life”, without specifying the country of destination, although two weeks later It was the King's Own House that, in the face of growing media and political speculation, announced that Juan Carlos was in Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates (specifically, he resides on Zaya Nurai Island).

Margaret II, a model queen, like her colleague from the House of Windsor, in front of a self-exiled man, with the image in tatters that leaks her birthday to magazines to entangle

On March 2, 2022, the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office archived the three ongoing cases against Juan Carlos, considering that they were either time-barred or “no illegal act” could be charged because they had taken place prior to 2014, when the monarch was subject to the inviolability included in the Spanish Constitution. But for History Margaret II will be, from what we know so far, a model queen, like her colleague from the House of Windsor. Meanwhile, Don Juan Carlos celebrates birthdays that appear on the cover of the magazine in his exile on the Arabian Peninsula. Hola, He celebrates splendor with a kind of parallel court, which encourages and applauds him in his nonsense, flaunts his fortune, counterprograms the institutional acts of his son and his own granddaughter, as in this Military Easter, and puts pressure, causing more problems than solutions. In Zarzuela they see that bringing him to Spain again (where he can come whenever he wants, but paying taxes if he resides and without living in the Palace) and it would not be good for him to say goodbye to his life in exile.