Queen Máxima of the Netherlands debate over her future title and style. On 28 January 2013, it was announced that Queen Beatrix would abdicate on 30 April in favour of Willem-Alexander. Máxima is the Kingdom's first queen consort since Princess Emma of Waldeck and Pyrmont, the second wife of William III. She is the first Dutch queen consort to have been born as a commoner, and the first to have been born outside Europe. Queen Máxima of the Netherlands Queen Máxima of the Netherlands (born Máxima Zorreguieta Cerruti; 17 May 1971) is the wife of King Willem-Alexander. On 30 April 2013, she became the first
Beatrix of the Netherlands degree from Leiden University. In 1966, Beatrix married Claus von Amsberg, a German diplomat, with whom she had three children. When her mother abdicated on 30 April 1980, Beatrix succeeded her as queen. Beatrix's reign saw the country's Caribbean possessions reshaped with Aruba's secession and becoming its own constituent country within the Kingdom in 1986 as well as the subsequent Antillean Dissolution in 2010, which created the new special municipalities of Bonaire, Sint Eustatius, and Saba, and the two new constituent countries of Curaçao and Sint Maarten. On Koninginnedag ("Queen's Day"), 30 April 2013, Beatrix abdicated in favour of her