Dutch Queen to abdicate

Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands abdicates the throne on Tuesday, ending 33 years as the country's monarch and paving the way for her eldest son, Willem-Alexander, to become the first Dutch king in more than 120 years.

The 75-year-old monarch will hand over power in a constitutionally ordained ceremony. The transfer will be official when she signs the "instrument of abdication."

In a televised address Monday night, the queen said she knows the new royal couple will have the loving trust of the nation.

"My oldest son will now take over a beautiful task which is filled with great responsibility," the queen said. "I am absolutely convinced that Willem-Alexander will be committed in faithful devotion to be a good king and to do what a good King is asked to do."

Beatrix steps down on the national holiday known as Queen's Day, an opportunity for people across the Netherlands to dress up and party. The investiture of the new king will be the high point of a year of celebrations marking the end of the Napoleonic occupation in 1813.

The queen announced her abdication in January, saying it was time for a new generation to lead.

"I have always considered it as an extraordinary privilege to be able to put a big part of my life at the service of our country and in accordance with my task to add substance to my kingship," said Beatrix, who acceded to the throne when her mother, Queen Juliana, abdicated in 1980.

Queen Beatrix is the sixth monarch from the House of Orange-Nassau, which has ruled the Netherlands since the early 19th Century.

Correspondents say she is extremely popular with most Dutch people, but her abdication was widely expected and will not provoke a constitutional crisis.

Under Dutch law, the monarch has few powers and the role is considered ceremonial.

In recent decades it has become the tradition for the monarch to abdicate.

Queen Beatrix's mother Juliana resigned the throne in 1980 on her 71st birthday, and her grandmother Wilhelmina abdicated in 1948 at the age of 68.

Queen Beatrix has remained active in recent years, but her reign has also seen traumatic events.

In 2009 a would-be attacker killed eight people when he drove his car into crowds watching the queen and other members of the royal family in a national holiday parade.

In February last year her second son, Prince Friso, was struck by an avalanche in Austria and remains in a coma.