VICTORIA, CROWN PRINCESS OF SWEDEN

'Victoria, Crown Princess of Sweden, Duchess of Västergötland' (, Victoria Ingrid Alice Désirée; born 14 July 1977) is the heiress apparent to the Swedish throne. She is currently the world's only female heir apparent to a royal throne.

Contents

Family background

Education

Change in status

Royal duties

Marriage speculation

Anorexia

Lines of Succession

See also

External links

Family background

She is the eldest child of King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia of Sweden, and belongs to the Royal House of Bernadotte. She is the only female heir-apparent in the world currently (though there are several females who are heiresses-apparent of an heir-apparent) and is usually styled ''HRH The Crown Princess''. She is currently 187th in the Line of Succession to the British Throne through her father, who is a great-great-grandson of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom.
Her given names honor various relatives. Her first name comes primarily from her great-great-grandmother Victoria of Baden, the queen-consort of Sweden as wife of King Gustaf V (but the same name also glorifies her twice-over great-great-great-grandmother Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom). Her other names honor her great-aunt Queen Ingrid of Denmark; her maternal grandmother, the Brazilian Alice Sommerlath (née de Toledo), her ancestor Désirée Clary, the queen-consort of Charles XIV John and a former fiancée of Napoleon Bonaparte.
She was christened at The Royal Palace Church on 27 September 1977. Her godparents are King Harald V of Norway, Ralf Sommerlath, Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, and her aunt, Princess Désirée, Baroness Silfverschiöld.
The Crown Princess is also godmother to a number of royal children, most of them future heirs such as Princess Ingrid Alexandra of Norway, Princess Catharina-Amalia of the Netherlands or Prince Christian of Denmark.

Education

Victoria attended a state elementary school and a private gymnasium (secondary school) in Stockholm, graduating in 1996. Afterward, she studied for a year at Université Catholique de l'Ouest at Angers in France, and for two years at Yale University in the United States. She has also spent considerable time studying and following the work of the Swedish government at the local, national and EU levels, as well as familiarizing herself with the Swedish economy. The Crown Princess followed a specially designed programme in order to gain a general insight into the workings of the Riksdag (the Swedish Parliament) and the Swedish Government.
In addition to her studies, Victoria has worked as a trainee at the United Nations in New York and at the Swedish Embassy in Washington, DC. She has also programme with the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), and interned at the Swedish Trade Council in Berlin and Paris. Victoria also studied forestry and agriculture.
The Crown Princess also studied French at the Centre International D'Études Françaises at the Université Catholique de L'Ouest in Angers, France.

Change in status

She was created crown princess and heir apparent on 1 January 1980, by the change made in 1979 to the Act of Succession of 1810 (Successionsordningen). This constitutional reform meant that the throne would be inherited by the monarch's eldest child without regard to gender. Sweden was the first country to adopt absolute primogeniture. This not only made Victoria the first heiress apparent to the Swedish throne, but it also made her the first female in the line of succession. The constitutional change was apparently not supported by the king, who favored his son as heir-apparent. The Swedish king apparently still has this view. [1]. When she became heiress, she also was made titular duchess of Västergötland, which is one of the historical provinces of Sweden.
Prior to this constitutional change, the heir to the throne was her younger brother, the then-Crown Prince Carl Philip, Duke of Värmland. He is now second in line to the throne. She also has a younger sister, Princess Madeleine, Duchess of Hälsingland and Gästrikland.

Royal duties

Crown Princess Victoria was invested as heir to the Swedish throne in a ceremony at the Hall of State of the Royal Palace of Stockholm on 14 July 1995, delivering her first speech to Parliament (Riksdagen). The Crown Princess has made many official trips abroad as a representative of Sweden. Her first major, official visit on her own was to Japan in the autumn of 2001, where she promoted Swedish tourism, design, music, environmental sustainability and gastronomy. In 2002 she paid official visits to Kosovo, and in 2003 to Egypt and the United States. In the beginning of 2004, she paid an official visit to Saudi Arabia, as a part of a large official business delegation from Sweden. One of the most recent official trips she has done on her own was to Hungary in October 2004, where she opened an exhibition. Her recent official visit to Australia was to promote Swedish design. In June 2005, HRH Crown Princess Victoria participated in the Swedish Business Seminar and Sweden Day celebrations in Ankara, Turkey during a historic visit which was organised by the Swedish Embassy in Ankara and Swedish Trade Council in Istanbul, she also visited the historic sights of Istanbul such as the Blue Mosque, Topkapi Palace, and Hagia Sophia. This was the first official Royal visit from Sweden to Turkey since 1934.
Victoria followed a study programme at the offices of the Swedish Government in 2001. This was of use after, in 2002 while visiting Tokyo and the USA with occasion of the Nobel Jubilee, while cooperating with the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, and spent time in countries such as Uganda and Ethiopia. In autumn 2002 she completed an internship with the Swedish Trade Council in Berlin and Paris.
The Princess also followed basic military education at SWEDINT (the Swedish Armed Forces International Centre). Crown Princess Victoria also studied at the Swedish National Defence College in Stockholm in 2004, focusing on Political Science, International Relations and Conflict Resolution.
She travelled in 2005 to Japan and Australia in various duties of representation of Sweden. Other duties in foreign countries included Bangladesh, Turkey and Sri Lanka.
In September 2006 she followed diplomatic training at the Swedish Foreign Ministry. The programme included lectures, seminars and group work.
Victoria traveled extensibely as representative for Sweden during her life. Some of the countries she visited include Egypt, China, Brazil, Australia, Uganda, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Japan, Kosovo, Luxembourg, Spain, Norway, Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Italy.

Marriage speculation

Though the Crown Princess has long refused to discuss her private life, she frequently has been the object of press speculation regarding purported romances. Since 2002, she has been linked to Daniel Westling, a personal trainer and gym owner. When news about her relationship with Westling first broke, the Crown Princess said, "We're good friends, but I'm not going to say any more". However, in an interview on Sweden's TV4 in 2004, she did say that much of the criticism directed at Westling for being unsophisticated and uneducated was unfair. "I understand that there is speculation but sometimes there must be fairness too", she said. Later that year, the Swedish newspaper ''Expressen'' reported that the couple intended to announce their engagement in early 2005 and marry the following summer but no such announcement was made.
During her April 2005 visit to the World Exposition Aichi in Nagakute, the Crown Princess was interviewed by Mikio Yikuma, a reporter with the Japanese newspaper ''Yomiuri Shimbun''. Yikuma brought up the subject of royals marrying commoners, to which the princess responded, "I think the general idea of Swedes is that it's the modern way to marry someone that you love, not necessarily where she or he comes from". Though she did not mention Westling by name, the Crown Princess did admit, "There is someone in my life" but that marriage was not on her mind. The interview was conducted at the Swedish embassy in Tokyo and published in ''Yomiuri Shimbun'' on April 18, 2005.

Anorexia

In 1997, the Crown Princess brought public attention in Sweden to anorexia by admitting that she had an eating disorder and was receiving treatment. The condition was officially announced by a palace spokesperson after the Crown Princess's increasingly thin frame had become a subject of gossip in newspapers and magazines. A year after the condition was revealed, the recovering princess said in an interview, "I feel very good now, but everyone went through a really difficult period."

Lines of Succession

See also

★ Swedish Royal Family

★ lineage of Swedish monarchs - gives an account how she descends from most of the historical monarchs of Sweden

External links

★ The Royal Court of Sweden: Crown Princess Victoria