In a recent statement in a TV documentary, Carl XVI Gustaf, the King of Sweden, criticized the law regulating the order of monarchic succession. The law was passed in 1980 to open for female succession to the throne.
In the documentary, the Swedish King explains:
It is rather tricky to have laws that work retroactively. It seems crazy; I still think so. I mean, you can accept that the next generation … that’s OK, but my son Prince Carl Philip, he was born, and then they change [the law] and he is deprived of it all. That’s quite peculiar.
King Carl Gustaf has three children: Crown Princess Victoria, Prince Carl Philip, and Princess Madeleine. His son, the middle child, was born in 1979 as Crown Prince of Sweden but lost that title a year later due to the changed law.
As a result of his criticism, the king has been portrayed as opposing his firstborn daughter’s right to the throne. Daily newspaper Expressen reports:
Critical comments made by the King in the SVT documentary The Last Kings of Sweden regarding the order of succession have attracted criticism. Subsequently, the king has explained that it “hurts him deeply” that some have perceived his comment as criticism against Crown Princess Victoria.
In a separate article, Expressen accounts for the inheritance losses that the prince suffers as a result of the change in the order of succession. In addition to the throne itself, Prince Carl Philip misses out on an estimated SEK50 million (€4.5 million; $4.8 million) from the family’s Galliera foundation. According to Expressen, the origin of the foundation dates back to 1813,
when Emperor Napoleon left the Duchy of Galliera in Italy to his stepson’s daughter, Princess Josefina of Leuchtenburg—who later became Queen Consort of Sweden by marriage to King Oscar I.
The foundation’s equity, which in part consists of approximately 60 unique paintings from the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries, has been passed on from father to firstborn son. However, in compliance with the 1980 succession law, the bylaws of the foundation now mandate that the inheritable equity be passed on to the firstborn child of the monarch, regardless of gender.
