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The Netherlands is a constitutional monarchy, which means that our head of state is a King or Queen, but the royal powers are limited as described in the Constitution. The Netherlands has been ruled by Queens since 1898: Emma, Wilhelmina, Juliana and the current head of state is Queen Beatrix. Her son - crown prince Willem-Alexander - will be the first King in a long time. He, and his wife - princess Maxima - just had their first baby on December 7, 2003 called Catherina-Amalia and when she rises to the throne it will be a Queen again.
Check it out: www.koninklijkhuis.nl/UK/occasions/special.html?geboorte1.html
The Dutch monarchy does not favor male over female descendants anymore. So even if the next child is a boy, the older daughter will still be the crown princess. How's that for emancipation? Check out interesting facts about the Dutch monarchy at www.koninklijkhuis.nl/UK/welcome.html.
The Netherlands is a democracy and has elections every four years. The Dutch then chose their government. The party that gets the most votes will provide the prime-minister, which in turn will chose his/her cabinet members. A cabinet almost always consists of members of two or more parties, since no party has the absolute majority.
Parliament is divided in a Second Chamber (like the House of Representatives) and a First Chamber (like the Senate). Parliament is responsible for the executive and legislative powers. As in the US the judicial powers rest with the courts and judges. However, a jury of peers is not used in the Netherlands. The death penalty was abolished in 1870 (but shortly reinstated during WWII).
As for monarchies, there are still a few left in Europe: like UK, Belgium, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Spain, Luxemburg. Others have long since switched to a republic. With the ongoing unification of Europe into the European Union, it's unclear what the effects will be on the current monarchies.
Interesting fact is that the Netherlands was a republic until Napoleon incorporated the Netherlands (still together with Belgium back then) as part of the French Empire. With his defeat at Waterloo (Belgium), the Netherlands became a kingdom in 1815.
Amsterdam is our famous capital and The Hague (Den Haag) is the seat of government.
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