Norway did it in 1990. Belgium did it in 1991. Monaco did it in 2002 and somehow still left half the family behind. “Modernized” is doing a lot of unearned work in royal PR right now.
Thirty-six years. That’s the span between Norway’s first move toward gender-equal succession and Monaco’s last one. Thirty-six years, three monarchies, and one of them still hasn’t actually finished the job.
Let’s run the numbers. Norway amended its constitution in 1990, eldest child inherits, full stop, sex irrelevant. Belgium followed in 1991, same principle, same result. Two countries, one year apart, both genuinely closing the gap between sons and daughters in the line of succession.
Then Monaco. In 2002, under real constitutional pressure, with Prince Albert childless and the entire principality’s independence theoretically on the line if his family tree went extinct, Monaco rewrote its succession law too. It excluded adopted children. It opened the throne to siblings and their descendants. It modernized the parts of the law that were inconvenient at the time.
It kept male-preference primogeniture completely intact.
Twelve years later, that omission stopped being theoretical. Princess Gabriella was born two minutes before her twin brother Jacques. Those two minutes should have made her heir to the throne, if Monaco’s 2002 reform had actually finished what Norway and Belgium had already done over a decade earlier. Instead Jacques outranks her. Permanently. By two minutes and one very deliberate legislative choice.
Here’s my actual problem with this. Every monarchy in Europe describes itself as modernizing, constantly, in every press release. The word gets used as though it means one consistent thing. It doesn’t. Norway’s modernization meant something specific and complete. Belgium’s matched it. Monaco’s modernization solved the problem the palace actually had, and quietly declined to solve the one it would have rather not mentioned.
Even Norway, the supposed gold standard here, is back at this again right now. Its parliament is reviewing a new constitutional amendment this year, this time to give Princess Ingrid Alexandra formal standing as regent. Thirty-six years after getting the headline reform right, Norway is still discovering gaps in the fine print. If the country that did this best in 1990 is still patching holes in 2026, what exactly is Monaco’s excuse for stopping at “good enough” in 2002?
The Role of Monarchy in Modern Democracy: European Monarchies Compared, edited by Robert Hazell and Bob Morris, is the book to read if you want the actual comparative detail here rather than my summary of it. It is dry. It is also more honest about this entire question than most of the institutions it covers.
“Modernized” should mean something specific: every child in the family inherits on the same terms, regardless of which one was born first. By that standard, two of these three monarchies have actually done it. The third one just learned how to say the word convincingly.
Daniel Harte is Crown & Court’s Opinion columnist. A political commentator and self-described reluctant monarchist, he has spent twenty years writing about the institution’s scandals, its failures, and the arguments its defenders would rather not have in public.
“The monarchy survives on myth. Let’s look at the facts.”
