Portal:European Union/Selected article/19

While most of the states in the world, and in Europe, are republics (have a directly or indirectly elected head of state), there are still six monarchies in the European Union, whose head of state (a monarch) inherits his or her office, and usually keeps it for life or until they abdicate. At the dawn of the 20^th century, France was the only republic among the future member states of the European Union; the ascent of republicanism to the political mainstream only started at the beginning of the 20^th century.

The European Union's monarchies are: the Kingdom of Belgium, the Kingdom of Denmark, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the Kingdom of Spain, and the Kingdom of Sweden.

All six monarchies in the European Union 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 utilise the political powers vested in the office by convention. There is currently no major campaign to abolish the monarchy in any of the remaining six states, although there is a significant minority of republicans in all of them.