European royals and heads of state have gathered in Oslo for the state funeral of King Harald V, who died on August 28 aged 89 after 35 years on the throne.
Under the programme set out by the Royal Court on August 30, the coffin was to leave the Royal Palace at 12 noon on an artillery carriage and travel along Karl Johans gate to Oslo Cathedral. A nationwide minute’s silence was to mark the start of the service at 1pm.
King Haakon VIII, who succeeded his father the moment he died and swore his oath to the constitution on September 1, was to follow the coffin on foot with Queen Sonja and Crown Princess Ingrid Alexandra.
Among those in Oslo were the monarchs of Sweden, Denmark, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium and Jordan, together with Prince William, heir to the British throne. The presidents of Finland, Germany and the Czech Republic were also expected.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky travelled to the ceremony a day after meeting Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre in the Norwegian capital for talks on the Ukraine War. The United States was to be represented by Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Allison Hooker.
Norwegian police mobilised close to 3,000 officers in what the force described as one of its biggest ever operations, with roughly 3,500 military personnel involved. Central Oslo was closed to traffic and large screens were set up for crowds unable to enter the cathedral.
Eulogies were to be delivered by Støre and by Masud Gharahkhani, President of the Storting, who told parliament on the day of the death that “a captain has left us”. The service was led by presiding bishop Olav Fykse Tveit with the Bishop of Oslo, Sunniva Gylver.
Four F-35 fighter jets were to fly over the cathedral in a “missing man” formation as the coffin was taken to Akershus Fortress for private interment. Harald was to be laid in a $2 million (€1.7 million) double sarcophagus made for him and Queen Sonja, its design still unpublished.
His reign spanned the 1994 referendum in which Norwegians rejected European Union membership for a second time, leaving the country outside the bloc but inside the single market through the European Economic Area, a relationship that has frayed this year over Arctic energy rules. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called him “a true European and a lifelong servant of his people”, while NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte described him as a long-time friend of the alliance.
More than 46,000 people filed past the coffin during the week it lay in state. Flags were to be raised from half-mast once the burial was complete, followed by an hour of church bells.
