Norway’s royal family and their staff will be “gradually” getting back to official duties when their mourning period for the late King Harald V ends on Friday. The new King Haakon VIII, however, will need to tackle most of the family’s program alone because his heirs are heading back to college and his wife remains on sick leave.
The palace announced on Wednesday that Norway’s new Queen Mette-Marit is still undergoing “rehabilitation” after her lung transplant operation in June. The 53-year-old queen attended King Harald V’s funeral on September 9th, and could wave from the palace balcony in Oslo when it was over, but she otherwise “won’t have an official program” until next summer.
Meanwhile, the new king and queen’s eldest child, the now-Crown Princess Ingrid Alexandra, “will continue to put priority on her studies” and only take part in a few “official occasions” until she returns to Australia in February. She had just begun studying at the University of Sydney when her mother became seriously ill and her grandfather later died.
The royal couple’s other son, Prince Sverre Magnus, is also beginning some higher education in Portugal, meaning King Haakon will be mostly on his own as monarch. His constitutional duties include weekly Councils of State with the government and regularly scheduled meetings with the prime minister and the foreign minister.
King Haakon will also begin some “thematic visits” with others who hold leading roles within Norway’s democratic system, business, nature and the environment, defense and inclusion. The palace confirmed that he’ll also invite members of groups from “various layers of society” to meetings throughout the autumn and winter.
No “major” official trips or state visits will be arranged until at least next spring or summer, the palace announced, since “the changes that follow introduction of a new monarch” also entail “changes in internal processes that will need to be made over the next several months.”
King Haakon will, however, visit the northern Norwegian city of Narvik next week. It’s known for its important harbour and a location so strategic in the Arctic area that Nazi Germany fought hard to seize it after invading Norway in April 1940. Now Norwegian defense forces are busy keeping Russian aircraft at bay, while Narvik is also important for export of iron ore and minerals extracted just over the border in Kiruna, Sweden, and for both Norwegian- and allied preparedness and defense operations.
King Haakon’s mother, Queen Sonja, meanwhile, intends to still carry out some official duties where she will represent the Royal Palace. She’s recently, and controversially, been referred to by the Royal Palace as kongemor, literally “king mother” in a title perhaps influenced by the longtime “Queen Mother” in England when her daughter Queen Elizabeth took over as monarch.
Royal experts in Norway objected to the kongemor term, however: “A kongemor in Norwegian means a king who is mother to the monarch and that’s of course biologically impossible,” claimed author and historian Trond Norén Isaksen, while Ole-Jørgen Schulsrud-Hansen who follows the royals for TV2 also objected to Queen Sonja’s new, additional title.
Palace officials declined to answer questions about the new title, but it wasn’t used when they issued new press releases on Wednesday for the first time in several weeks. Questions remain about where Queen Sonja, now age 89, will live since the monarch is traditionally expected to move into the residential portion of the palace in Oslo.
Norway has never had a widowed queen, or two women with the same title although it’s Mette-Marit who also now carries the “Her Majesty” title. Schulsrud-Hansen noted that the Royal Palace contains at least two other residential units in addition to the 950-square meter apartment where Queen Sonja lived with King Harald.
There’s speculation, meanwhile, that King Haakon and Queen Mette-Marit will continue to reside at the suburban estate Skaugum meant for the crown couple, and that Queen Sonja will remain at the palace. Schulsrud-Hansen thinks Haakon and Mette-Marit may not move out of Skaugum until Crown Princess Ingrid Alexandra marries and takes over the estate with a new spouse. Queen Sonja also owns a fashionable condominium in Professor Dahls Gate behind the palace, and has often resided at the summer estate on Bygdøy in Oslo.
NewsinEnglish.no/Nina Berglund
