The European countries' royals annually reviewed are as follows, with the key developments over the year outlined afterwards:
Existing hereditary monarchies: Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Spain, Monaco.
Former monarchies: Russia, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Albania, Serbia, Montenegro, Austria, Germany, Italy, Portugal, France.
2020
In a year when COVID 19 has dominated the world's headlines, royals testing positive for the coronavirus include Prince Albert II of Monaco and the claimant Emperor Karl II of Austria.
As
countries around the world debate the best approach to containing and
eliminating COVID 19, with Sweden standing out as taking an exceptionally loose
approach to restrictions, King Carl XVI of Sweden makes it known at the end of
2020 that he feels that his country’s approach had been a failure.
The claimant, King Leka II of Albania, has his first child, Princess Geraldine.
In
a speech, King Philippe of the Belgians admits that regrettably cruel acts were committed during Belgium’s rule of the Congo.
As
his father and predecessor, the former King Juan Carlos, is engulfed in
scandals, including receipt of controversially large donations, King Felipe VI
of Spain attempts to distance himself from his father by cutting his father’s state
funding and renounces his own future inheritance of any money from questionable
sources.
