In a rare intervention that underscores the enduring authority of Europe’s remaining absolute monarchs, Prince Albert II of Monaco has refused to sign a bill that would have legalised abortion in the principality, abruptly halting a reform passed by a large parliamentary majority.
The bill, approved in May by 19 votes to 2 in the National Council, proposed allowing terminations up to 12 weeks of pregnancy – or 16 weeks in cases of rape – and reducing the age of parental consent from 18 to 15.
However, the Prince instructed his government not to implement the measure, effectively refusing to grant what is known as ‘Royal Assent’ in the UK.
In comments to the local newspaper Monaco-Matin, he made clear that he regarded the reform as incompatible with the identity of the principality. He said: “I believe the current system expresses who we are, considering the role of the Catholic religion in our country, while ensuring safe and humane support.”
Monaco’s existing law, among the strictest in Europe, permits abortion only in three circumstances: rape, serious risk to the mother’s life, or significant foetal abnormality. Although the procedure was decriminalised in 2019, a woman who seeks an elective termination must travel abroad, usually to France. The Prince argued that legislative changes introduced in 2009 and 2019 had already established “a balanced framework – one that respects Monaco’s constitutional principles, cultural identity and the women affected.”
Two weeks before his public comments, Christophe Mirmand, the Minister of State, informed Thomas Brezzo, president of the National Council, that the government would not be taking the bill forward. At the Prince’s request, officials formally notified the Council that the text would not be promulgated.
The refusal amounts to a direct use of one of the most potent powers available to the Monegasque sovereign. Under the constitution, no bill can become law unless the Prince sanctions and promulgates it – a requirement that gives him an unambiguous veto over legislation. Such interventions are almost unheard of in modern European monarchies, which have long since rendered royal assent a formality.
There are, however, precedents elsewhere. King Baudouin of Belgium famously declined to sign his country’s 1990 law liberalising abortion, prompting the government to declare him temporarily unable to reign so that ministers could enact the legislation collectively. In Luxembourg, Grand Duke Henri’s refusal to sign a 2008 euthanasia bill led parliament to amend the constitution, stripping the monarch of his sanctioning authority. Liechtenstein’s Hans-Adam II has also stated that he would block any attempt to legalise abortion by referendum.
Monaco has taken a different path. The principality’s constitution still defines Catholicism as the state religion and provides no alternative route for legislation to bypass the Prince. As a result, his decision stands as a decisive and final word on the matter, leaving the country’s restrictive abortion regime unchanged.
“I understand how sensitive this subject is, the emotion it can bring up,” Prince Albert acknowledged. But with the stroke of a pen withheld, he has demonstrated that, in Monaco at least, the sovereign’s assent remains far more than ceremonial.
