Queen Beatrix abdicates to put Holland 'in hands of a new generation'

Queen Beatrix abdicates to By Damien McElroy Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands announced her abdication on Monday, clearing the way for her eldest son to become the country's first king in more than a century. In a short televised speech, the Queen said it was time to place the nation "in the hands of a new generation".

She turns 75 in a few days' time and is already the country's oldest ever monarch. Both her mother, Queen Julianna, and her grandmother, Queen Wilhelmina, also abdicated. The Dutch do not see being king or queen as a job for life. "I am not abdicating because this office is too much of a burden, but out of conviction that the responsibility for our nation should now rest in the hands of a new generation," the Queen said in a speech from her Huis ten Bosch palace.

"I am deeply grateful for the great faith you have shown in me in the many years that I could be your Queen." Queen Beatrix praised her eldest son, Prince Willem-Alexander, as a talented and capable successor "fully prepared" for his future role.

She said he would assume the throne on April 30 at the high point of a year of celebrations to mark the end of the Napoleonic occupation in 1813. The Kingdom of the Netherlands was established two years later.

Mark Rutte, the Dutch prime minister, also broadcast to the nation to thank Queen Beatrix for her long record of service. "Since her coronation in 1980 she's applied herself heart and soul for Dutch society," he said. "She has grown into a Dutch icon."

The abdication signals the end of the reign of one of Europe's longest-serving monarchs. Queen Beatrix assumed the throne in 1980 when Queen Julianna stepped down after 32 years. Her grandmother, Queen Wilhelmina, abdicated in 1948 after a reign of 58 years. Queen Beatrix has maintained the popularity of the House of Orange despite a series of family controversies and is abdicating while her eldest son, Willem-Alexander, is a relatively youthful 45.

Willem-Alexander will become the first Dutch king since Willem III, who reigned until his death in 1890. A member of the International Olympic Committee, he is a trained pilot and expert in water management who has long been groomed for the throne. He courted controversy with his choice to marry Maxima Zorreguieta, an investment banker whose father was an agriculture minister in the military junta that ruled Argentina in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Queen Beatrix, who graduated in law from Leiden University in 1961, maintained a slimmed down "common-touch" royal household. Observers believe she remained on the throne for so long in part because of unrest in Dutch society as the country struggled to assimilate more and more immigrants and shifted away from its traditional reputation as one of the world's most tolerant nations. In her Christmas Day speech in 2010, she made a heartfelt plea for unity, saying, "with each other we all make up one society".

She tested Dutch goodwill on several occasions in her lifetime, most notably when she married Claus von Amsberg, a German diplomat who had been a member of the Hitler Youth. He died in 2002. Other tragedies dogged the monarch during her last years on the throne. A deranged loner tried to slam a car into an open-topped bus carrying members of the royal family as they celebrated the Queen's Day national holiday in 2010.

The driver killed seven people in the watching crowd. The monarch's middle son, Prince Johan Friso, has been in a coma since he was buried in an avalanche while skiing last year. Queen Beatrix is expected to move to Drakensteyn castle as queen mother at the end of April.