Grand Duke Henri announces abdication date: October 3, 2025


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It does seem that way. Not hanging on a few days more seems quite pointed to me. I guess Henri’s reign will end as confusingly and illogically as most of it had played out.
 
I’m surprised and disappointed that grand duke Henri abdicated. Like many said here, the abdication lost its political meaning and now it’s a new retirement. By today’s standards Henri will be still not that old to retire.
I prefer the old way when the monarch ruled to the end. In times when people live much longer, I think that some monarchs may want to let their children to take over when they are not very old yet.
I feel that being a nowadays monarch means not a vocation or ‘ruling’ even as a figurehead but just a job.
 
In Luxembourg and in the Netherlands the Abdication is normal . In Luxemourg they keep their title ; In the Netherlands not , the former Queen is now a Princess.
Guillaume and Stephanie will be Grand Duke and Grand Duchess with very small Children and no working Royal to help them as all his Brothers and Sister left Luxembourg.
He could celebrate his 25 years of Grand Duke and abdicate in January. Something is not clear
State Problem , Ilness or again a caprice of the Grand Duchess .
 
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I am afraid Henri is making somewhat of a laughing stock of himself. First, he doesn't seem to be taking the appointment of a 'lieutenant-representative' very seriously as he seems to be carrying on as normal and now he plans to celebrate a silver jubilee that he is (by design) not completing.
 
maria-olivia said:
In Luxembourg and in the Netherlands the Abdication is normal . In Luxemourg they keep their title ; In the Netherlands not , the former Queen is now a Princess.
Guillaume and Stephanie will be Grand Duke and Grand Duchess with very small Children and no working Royal to help them as all his Brothers and Sister left Luxembourg.
He could celebrate his 25 years of Grand Duke and abdicate in January. Something is not clear
State Problem , Ilness or again a caprice of the Grand Duchess .
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That small mostly affluent country which has about 600.000 inhabitants, of which half are immigrants who are working there, does not need so many Royal members to represent their country.
No comparison to other European countries, such as GB or Spain or even Belgium and the Netherlands. There simply aren't not so many issues to attend to. There might be a few poor or homeless people as there are everywhere, but not in the dimension of the need of the Royals visiting.

Why do you think that Gui and Stephanie have been concentrating so much on visiting senior people's home and art exhibitions, but not visiting soup kitchens, homeless shelters, and fortunately no sites of big floods or any other disasters.

Because they do not have it there like other countries do. We have often travelled to Luxembourg, because it is not far from us. A tiny affluent country which you can travel from east to west or from north to south in a couple of hours. And, believe me, just by crossing this tiny bit of country, you are not confronted with a lot of desert industrial sites, poverty, drug addicts, graffiti everywhere and the like.
Probably the same scenery in Liechtenstein and Monaco, lucky they are.

Just to say that the importance of a royal representative who cares for his people and has lots of issues to attend to, is not to compare with other countries I know of.
 
maria-olivia said:
In Luxembourg and in the Netherlands the Abdication is normal . In Luxemourg they keep their title ; In the Netherlands not , the former Queen is now a Princess.
Guillaume and Stephanie will be Grand Duke and Grand Duchess with very small Children and no working Royal to help them as all his Brothers and Sister left Luxembourg.
He could celebrate his 25 years of Grand Duke and abdicate in January. Something is not clear
State Problem , Ilness or again a caprice of the Grand Duchess .
Click to expand...
I bet Prince Louis will become a bit more present in Luxembourg and perhaps do more engagements. He is the more present of the children outside of Guillaume.
 
hereditarytitles said:
That small mostly affluent country which has about 600.000 inhabitants, of which half are immigrants who are working there, does not need so many Royal members to represent their country.
No comparison to other European countries, such as GB or Spain or even Belgium and the Netherlands. There simply aren't not so many issues to attend to. There might be a few poor or homeless people as there are everywhere, but not in the dimension of the need of the Royals visiting.

Why do you think that Gui and Stephanie have been concentrating so much on visiting senior people's home and art exhibitions, but not visiting soup kitchens, homeless shelters, and fortunately no sites of big floods or any other disasters.

Because they do not have it there like other countries do. We have often travelled to Luxembourg, because it is not far from us. A tiny affluent country which you can travel from east to west or from north to south in a couple of hours. And, believe me, just by crossing this tiny bit of country, you are not confronted with a lot of desert industrial sites, poverty, drug addicts, graffiti everywhere and the like.
Probably the same scenery in Liechtenstein and Monaco, lucky they are.

Just to say that the importance of a royal representative who cares for his people and has lots of issues to attend to, is not to compare with other countries I know of.
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meaning no disrespect, but i think for the Luxemburg people, their royal family has the same meaning as the other families have for their own countries, like when the floods happened in 2021
Hochwasser / Großherzog Henri besucht die besonders hart getroffenen Gebiete in Vianden und Echternach
 
I am not at all saying that the people of Luxembourg do not love or respect their royal family. There is a long tradition of these royal representatives.

I read Luxembourg newspapers from time to time and also the commentaries if they are free to read. That gives you an impression of the mood in the country, very subjective of course.
I wanted to say that IMO they do not generate so much emotions as other European royal houses. There is neither much euphoria nor much dislike. It often seems to me that they accept their royal house, and if there are no scandals, then it's okay. It is possible that the mood among the population has shifted a little due to several recent events. However, there are no republican movements to abolish them as we sometimes see in other countries.

And, again, don't forget the population fact: 600.000 inhabitants (that is less than the city I live in) and half of them people who are not Luxembourgers but came there for work, who might not be interested in the royal family.
 
I think celebrating the jubilee is not that drastic that he will be short 4 days to actually complete it as we have saw in other monarchies when there is a jubilee celebration that is not a birthday, the celebrations does happen around that year not just on the day they passed the milestone, so celebrating it around the national day celebrations doesn’t look like a big deal for me
 
I lived in Luxembourg from 1972 to 1979. My neighbours were old Ladies who were teachers at the Grand Ducal Palace; One day, it was snowing , I saw a car stopping before their home and I saw one of my neighbours going quickly to the car. A person went out of the car and she was Grand Duchess Charlotte , her Daughter Elisabeth , Duchess of Hohenberg was the Driver. I will never forgot the Emotion I had to see her smiling just next to my home. Nowadays I always think I had to go outside waiting when She left and saying Vive Madame la Grande Duchesse .
 
What a fabulous experience!

I’m all for celebrating a jubilee whenever when the sovereign had every intention of carrying on , not when they have preplanned to step down 4 days.
 
I was surprised that this happened so quickly - Prince Charles will be very young heir. I imagine the new Grand Duke and Duchess will reign for longer than 25 years (if possible) to take into consideration the age of their young children and time to prepare the next generation
 
PrincessofEurope said:
I was surprised that this happened so quickly - Prince Charles will be very young heir. I imagine the new Grand Duke and Duchess will reign for longer than 25 years (if possible) to take into consideration the age of their young children and time to prepare the next generation
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I think the next reign will be more like Gulliaume’s grandfather Grand Duke Jean who reigned for 36 years..

If his health holds up, and with no Grand Duchess M-T around to complicate things, i don’t think that will be a problem.
 
Guillaume should be called Guilaume V or simply Guillaume?

Did Jean conferred to Maria Teresa the Order of the Golden Lion of the House of Nassau one day before his abdication or months before?
 
I was not at all surprised by the abdication announcement and had expected it sooner given all of the controversy surrounding Grand Duchess M-T and that report.
 
Is the title "Hereditary Grand Duke" granted automatically or not? Guillaume was already of age when became heir apparent, so the situation was a bit different. I wonder if Charles will be given that title on the accession day or on his 18th birthday.
 
Henri was nine when Jean became Grand Duke, and although Wikipedia states that he became Hereditary Grand Duke upon his father's proclamation, here's an article from 1973 about how once declared of age, Prince Henri was proclaimed Hereditary Grand Duke of Luxembourg.

BnL Viewer

viewer.eluxemburgensia.lu viewer.eluxemburgensia.lu

​

 
Interesting. However, that was based on the family law from 1822, so we would need to check the current regulations to see whether that still applies. See: family bylaws on Luxarazzi

Section 4a does not include any reference to age, so I'd say that based on this family pact, Charles will be the hereditary grand duke the moment he becomes the heir apparent, i.e., when his father ascends the throne.
 
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When Maria Teresa was awarded with the Order of the Golden Lion of the House of Nassau? Days or motnths before Jean's abdication?
 
mybags said:
Jean's abdication was in October 2000. There were other celebrations held in April 2001 for which other European royal houses were invited. Henri's accession had to be postponed from September 2000 to October 2000 because of his brother Guillaume's serious car accident. I wonder if this time around the actual abdication/accession and celebrations with other royals will take place together.
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I was wondering about this side of things when Gui succeeds as I didn't pay much attention to what happened 25 years ago. Is there likely to be at least one white tie/tiara event for other royals. Also what other royal families were represented last time around.
 
sophie25 said:
I was wondering about this side of things when Gui succeeds as I didn't pay much attention to what happened 25 years ago. Is there likely to be at least one white tie/tiara event for other royals. Also what other royal families were represented last time around.
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At the actual abdication, only then Queen Beatrix and King Albert and Queen Paola were present. They Events had been reduced a bit and the date had been postponed for a few weeks because of the heave accident Prince Guillaume and Princess Sibilla had been just before the original date.
'A few months later also an Event with the other european heirs took place but it wasn't a tiara Event.
 
Stefan said:
At the actual abdication, only then Queen Beatrix and King Albert and Queen Paola were present. They Events had been reduced a bit and the date had been postponed for a few weeks because of the heave accident Prince Guillaume and Princess Sibilla had been just before the original date.
'A few months later also an Event with the other european heirs took place but it wasn't a tiara Event.
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Oh well, I'll be happy just to see a big royal gathering if it happens, tiaras or not.
 
It would be nice if Guillaume's godchildren were present at one or more of the events; in that case we would see princess Ariane and prince Emmanuel attending from abroad.
 
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