Dutch queen to abdicate after 33 years in favor of son

• Email
• Print
• Comments (0)

Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands will abdicate this year and be succeeded by her eldest son, Crown Prince Willem-Alexander, who will become the country’s first king in more than a century.

Beatrix, who turns 75 today, will cede the Dutch throne to Willem-Alexander on April 30, she said in a televised address to the nation Monday from her Huis ten Bosch palace in The Hague. Beatrix succeeded her mother, Queen Juliana, in 1980.

“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,” she said.