Does the Queen of Denmark have any power?

Shortly after King Frederik IX delivered his New Year’s Address to the Nation at the 1971/72 turn of the year, he fell ill, and died 14 days later on 14 January 1972. Margrethe succeeded to the throne at the age of 31, becoming the first female Danish sovereign under the new Act of Succession. She was proclaimed Queen from the balcony of Christiansborg Palace 15 January 1972 by Prime Minister Jens Otto Krag. Queen Margrethe II relinquished all the monarch’s former titles except the title to Denmark, hence her style “By the Grace of God, Queen of Denmark” (Danish: Margrethe den Anden, af Guds Nåde Danmarks Dronning). The Queen chose the motto: God’s help, the love of The People, Denmark’s strength.^[14]

In her first address to the people, Queen Margrethe II said:

My beloved father, our King, is dead. The task that my father had carried for nearly 25 years is now resting on my shoulders. I pray to God to give me help and strength to carry the heavy heritage. May the trust that was given to my father also be granted to me.

Constitutional role

The Queen’s main tasks are to represent the Kingdom abroad and to be a unifying figure at home. She performs the latter by opening exhibitions, attending anniversaries and inaugurating bridges, among other things. She receives foreign ambassadors and awards honours and medals.

As an unelected public official, the Queen takes no part in party politics and does not express any political opinions. Although she has the right to vote, she opts not to do so to avoid even the appearance of partisanship.

The Queen holds a meeting with the prime minister and the foreign affairs minister every Wednesday, unless she or the prime minister is outside of the kingdom.

After an election where the incumbent prime minister does not have a majority behind him or her, the Queen holds a “Dronningerunde” (Queen’s meeting) in which she meets the chairmen of each of the Danish political parties.^[

Each party has the choice of selecting a royal investigator to lead these negotiations or alternatively, give the incumbent prime minister the mandate to continue his or her government as is. In theory each party could choose its own leader as royal investigator, as the social liberal Det Radikale Venstre did in 2006, but often only one royal investigator is chosen plus the prime minister, before each election. The leader who, at that meeting succeeds in securing a majority of the seats in the Folketing, is by royal decree charged with the task of forming a new government. (No party has held an absolute majority in the Folketing since 1903.)

Once the government has been formed, it is formally appointed by the Queen. Officially, it is the Queen who is the head of state, and she therefore presides over the Council of State (privy council), where the acts of legislation which have been passed by the parliament are signed into law. In practice, nearly all of the Queen’s formal powers are exercised by the Cabinet of Denmark.

The Queen is also the colonel-in-chief of the Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment (Queen’s and Royal Hampshires), an infantry regiment of the British Army, following a tradition in her family.

Silver and Ruby Jubilees

Queen Margrethe II marked her Silver Jubilee in 1997 with a religious service and a gala dinner attended by fellow Scandinavian royals.^[17] She celebrated her Ruby Jubilee, the 40th year on the throne, on 14 January 2012.^[18] This was marked by a church service, concert, carriage procession, gala banquet at Christiansborg Palace and numerous TV interviews.^[17]

Immigration debate

In an interview within the 2016 book De dybeste rødder (The Deepest Roots), according to historians at the Saxo Institute of the University of Copenhagen she showed a change in attitude to immigration towards a more restrictive stance. She stated that the Danish people should have more explicitly clarified the rules and values of Danish culture in order to be able to teach them to new arrivals. She further stated that the Danes in general have underestimated the difficulties involved in successful integration of immigrants, exemplified with the rules of a democracy not being clarified to Muslim immigrants and a lack of readiness to enforce those rules. This was received as a change in line with the attitude of the Danish people.^[19][20]