Tag Archives: Netherlands

Church and state in European monarchies

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At his coronation, Charles III will swear an oath to uphold the Protestant religion in a ceremony overseen by the Archbishop of Canterbury. However, while many European monarchs retain a link to their national church, the UK is alone in continuing to have a coronation ceremony. Frank Cranmer discusses how monarchies throughout Europe have attempted to reconcile their historical religious traditions with the reality of modern multi-faith societies.

In addition to the United Kingdom, there are 11 other monarchies across Europe, with varying constitutional arrangements when it comes to religion: Andorra, Belgium, Denmark, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden – and, of course, Vatican City, where the Pope is head of state. In Andorra, the Bishop of Urgell and the President of France are co-Princes and its constitution gives special recognition to the Roman Catholic Church. Under the constitution of Liechtenstein, the Roman Catholic Church is the ‘National Church’, while the constitution of Monaco declares Roman Catholicism ‘the religion of the state’.

Under the terms of the Act of Settlement 1700, the monarch of the United Kingdom may not be a Roman Catholic, and the relationship between church and state means, in effect, that he or she must be a member of the Church of England as established by law. Uniquely in Europe, the British monarch is also the Supreme Governor of the Church: a title that goes back to the Act of Supremacy 1559, when the Protestant Elizabeth I succeeded the Catholic Mary. Henry VIII had declared himself the ‘Supreme Head in earth’ of the Church, but Elizabeth chose a less confrontational title.

The monarch also has a unique association with the Church of Scotland, appointing a Lord High Commissioner to the annual General Assembly of the Church who makes opening and closing addresses to the Assembly as the monarch’s representative and carries out a number of official functions while the Assembly is sitting. In 2002, Queen Elizabeth II attended in person rather than appointing a commissioner.

Scandinavia also preserves a Protestant succession. The Church of Sweden was disestablished on 1 January 2000. Furthermore, ties between church and state in Norway were somewhat loosened by an amendment to the constitution which came into effect on 1 January 2017, which removed the previous reference to an ‘official religion of the State’. However, both countries still require their monarch to be Lutheran. In Sweden, for example, under Article 4 of the Act of Succession 1810, ‘The King shall always profess the pure evangelical faith, as adopted and explained in the unaltered Confession of Augsburg and in the Resolution of the Uppsala Meeting of the year 1593’. Likewise in Denmark, Article 4 of the Constitution maintains the establishment of the Evangelical Lutheran Church and Article 6 requires that the monarch shall be a member of the Church.

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The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee: what does the future hold for the monarchy? 

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The Platinum Jubilee was a time for celebration, but it also provoked many questions about the future of the monarchy, and what it might look like under the next monarch. In this post, Robert Hazell and Bob Morris attempt to answer those questions, relying on their detailed knowledge of modern European monarchies.

The Platinum Jubilee was an occasion for celebration and relaxation rather than profound reflection about the monarchy and its future. But for Robert Hazell and Bob Morris it was an exceptionally busy weekend, as they responded to a deluge of media requests from around the world. These clustered around the same set of questions:

  • How can a hereditary monarchy be part of a modern democracy?
  • Will public support for the monarchy outlive support for the Queen?
  • What kind of King will Prince Charles be? What changes might he want to introduce?
  • What is the future of the monarchy in the realms, the 14 other countries around the world where the Queen is also head of state?

This post offers more detailed answers to these questions than allowed by brief media interviews. It does so through a comparative and constitutional law lens, based upon our co-edited book, The Role of Monarchy in Modern Democracy: European Monarchy

How can a hereditary monarchy be part of a modern democracy?

The first question is easily answered: there is no contradiction between monarchy and democracy, with some of the most advanced democracies in the world also being monarchies. Denmark, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands and New Zealand are countries which regularly feature at the top of the annual Democracy Index compiled by the Economist Intelligence Unit: all are monarchies. They have survived as monarchies because the monarch no longer has any political power; the monarch reigns, but does not rule. Constitutional monarchs act on the advice of the elected government; if they fail to do that or otherwise step out of line, they risk losing their thrones. That was the lesson brutally learned by Edward VIII in the abdication crisis of 1936, but he was not the only European monarch forced to abdicate. The same fate befell King Leopold III of the Belgians in 1950, Grand Duchess Marie-Adélaïde of Luxembourg in 1919, and King Juan Carlos of Spain in 2014, when opinion polls showed that two-thirds of Spaniards felt he should abdicate.

Will public support for the monarchy outlive support for the Queen?

Monarchy as a system of government depends on the consent of the people as well as the government. If the people withdraw their support from monarchy as an institution, it is finished. That is how monarchy came to an end in referendums in Italy after the Second World War and in Greece in 1973-74. In all, there were 18 referendums held on the future of the monarchy in 10 different European countries during the last century. Not all led to the country becoming a republic: referendums have reaffirmed continuation of the monarchy in Denmark and Norway, and restoration of the monarchy in Spain.

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Riding the populist wave: the UK Conservatives and the constitution

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At a recent Constitution Unit event (available in video and podcast form), Tim Bale discussed the challenges posed to mainstream conservatism by the recent rise in successful populist politicians. Here, he sets out those challenges, how conservatives have traditionally faced them, and concludes that the UK Conservative Party is so determined to ‘unite the right’ and supress support for a challenger party that it risks transmogrifying into a populist radical right party.

A few weeks ago I was diagnosed with costochondritis – a minor and surprisingly common condition involving the cartilage that joins your ribs to your sternum but which produces chest pains that make some people suffering from it worry they’re having a heart attack.

The standard treatment is to take non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs such as ibuprofen. For me this presented a bit of a dilemma. Like many other people, I don’t tolerate ibuprofen: it irritates my gastrointestinal tract – something I’m wise to avoid doing because I also suffer from something called Barrett’s oesophagus, which, if you’re unlucky, can turn cancerous. So, on the assumption that the costochondritis would eventually resolve itself, and given the fact that the discomfort involved was irritating but far from overwhelming, I decided just to put up with it.

I’m sharing this bit of my recent medical history not because I particularly enjoy talking about it but because it produces a useful analogy for a question that I want to ask – namely, are politicians on the mainstream right so concerned about countering the rise of populist radical right parties that they end up proposing things that risk doing more harm to society and to the polity than if they were simply to admit that those parties are now a normal rather than a pathological feature of contemporary politics?

The background to this is the book I’ve recently co-edited with Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser, called Riding the Populist Wave: Europe’s Mainstream Right in Crisis. We look at how mainstream right parties – which aren’t written about anywhere near as much as their counterparts on the left or, indeed, on the far right – have handled (or in some cases failed to handle) some of the challenges that they’ve been facing for the last three or four decades. Over that time, they’ve suffered significant electoral decline, although, as we show in the book, the extent of that decline varies not just between countries but between party families, with Christian democratic parties suffering more than conservative parties, which, in turn, have suffered more than (market) liberal parties, which have actually managed to hold pretty steady.

We argue that the difficulties they’ve faced are partly down to their having to cope with something of a double whammy.

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The role of monarchy in modern democracy

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In the 21st century, monarchies remain pivotal parts of several democratic countries across Europe, including the UK. In a new book, edited by Unit founder Robert Hazell and Bob Morris, contributors from across Europe consider the constitutional and political role of monarchy, its powers and functions, how it is defined and regulated, the laws of succession and royal finances, relations with the media, its popularity, and why it endures.

Monarchy has a long history in Europe, being the predominant form of government from the Middle Ages until the First World War. At the turn of the twentieth century every country in Europe was a monarchy with just three exceptions: France, Switzerland and San Marino. But by the start of the twenty-first century, most European countries had ceased to be monarchies, and three quarters of the member states of the European Union are now republics. That has led to a teleological assumption that in time most advanced democracies will become republics, as the highest form of democratic government. 

But there is a stubborn group of countries in Western Europe which defy that assumption, and they include some of the most advanced democracies in the world. In the most recent Democracy Index compiled by the Economist Intelligence Unit, six out of the top ten democracies – and nine of the top 15 – in the world were monarchies. They include six European monarchies: Norway, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and the UK.

This paradox of an ancient hereditary institution surviving as a central part of modern democracies prompted the comparative study which led to our latest book, The Role of Monarchy in Modern Democracy: European Monarchies Compared. Our study, written by 20 academic experts, includes the six countries listed above, plus Belgium and Spain. 

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Coronavirus: how Europe’s monarchs stepped up as their nations faced the crisis

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bob_morris_163x122.jpgprofessor_hazell_2000x2500_1.jpgLast Sunday, the Queen spoke to the nation in a rare televised address. The speech was widely praised, and several other European monarchs have made similar attempts to connect with the public. Bob Morris and Robert Hazell argue that her intervention demonstrates the value of an apolitical head of state that remains compatible with modern democracy. 

The British Queen’s address to the nation on Sunday, April 5 evoked huge interest, respect and widespread appreciation. Nearly 24 million people in the UK watched her deliver the four-minute speech, which paid tribute to National Health Service and other key workers, thanked people for following government rules to stay at home and promised ‘we’ll meet again’.

Her words were greeted with almost universal praise from politicians, press and the public alike. But what made it so special? Who advises the Queen on such occasions? And what does it tell us about the monarchy – what can monarchs do that political leaders cannot?

It was special because of its rarity – this was only the fourth occasion on which Elizabeth II has addressed the nation other than in her annual Christmas message. All have marked particular national moments: war in Iraq, the deaths of Princess Diana and the Queen Mother, her thanks for the celebrations for her diamond jubilee. In different ways they bring the nation together – her heartfelt address before Diana’s funeral was especially effective in bringing her people to understand why she had prioritised consoling her bereaved young grandchildren.

The coronavirus speech – a little over 500 words – came invested with the authority of someone able to draw on long personal experience of the country’s trials. Instancing her own message as a 14 year-old to child evacuees wrenched from their families in 1940 was but one way of giving the speech a depth of field to which no politician could aspire. Continue reading →