Monarchies in Europe

• published: 20 Oct 2015
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There are currently twelve sovereign monarchies in Europe: the Principality of Andorra, the Kingdom of Belgium, the Kingdom of Denmark, the Principality of Liechtenstein, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, the Principality of Monaco, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the Kingdom of Norway, the Kingdom of Spain, the Kingdom of Sweden, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the State of the Vatican City. Ten of these are states where the head of state inherits his or her office, and usually keeps it for life or until they abdicate. As for the other two: in the Vatican City, the head of state, the Sovereign, is elected at the papal conclave, while in Andorra, the joint heads of state are the elected President of France and the Bishop of Urgell, appointed by the Pope. Most of the monarchies in Europe are constitutional monarchies, which means that the monarch does not influence the politics of the state: either the monarch is legally prohibited from doing so, or the monarch does not utilize the political powers vested in the office by convention. The exceptions are Liechtenstein, which is usually considered a semi-constitutional monarchy due to the large influence the prince still has on politics, and the Vatican City, which is a theocratic absolute elective monarchy. There is currently no major campaign to abolish the monarchy in any of the twelve states, although there is a significant minority of republicans in many of them. Currently seven of the twelve monarchies are members of the European Union: Belgium, Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom. This video is targeted to blind users. Attribution: Article text available under CC-BY-SA Creative Commons image source in video