Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands is to make a televised announcement, amid speculation in local media that she will abdicate the throne.

The queen, who is approaching her 75th birthday, will address the nation at 19:00 local time (18:00 GMT), the royal household said in a statement.

Unconfirmed Dutch reports say she will announce her abdication in favour of her son, Prince Willem-Alexander.

Queen Beatrix has been head of state since 1980, when her mother abdicated.

The royal household said the speech had already been recorded by the queen at her palace on the outskirts of The Hague, but refused to comment on its content.

Prime Minister Mark Rutte would also address the nation following the queen’s speech, his office said.

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

Abdication ‘tradition’

Correspondents say her abdication would be unlikely to 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 70th birthday, and her grandmother Wilhelmina abdicated in 1948 at the age of 68.

Queen Beatrix will be 75 on Thursday.

She 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 March last year her second son Prince Johan Friso was struck by an avalanche in Austria and remains in a coma.