The Nordic kings walking together behind King Harald V’s coffin in Oslo have become a powerful image of Scandinavian unity at a time of growing security concerns in Europe. King Haakon VIII of Norway, King Frederik X of Denmark and King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden walked side by side on Wednesday, 9 September, during the final part of Harald’s funeral procession, a scene that historians and political analysts told TV 2 Denmark carried significance well beyond the ceremony itself.
The three monarchs, dressed in military gala uniforms, followed Harald’s coffin before paying their final respects as it was taken towards Akershus Fortress. Norway’s Royal Court said that representatives from 85 countries, members of royal families and thousands of people in Oslo attended or followed the funeral ceremonies.
Nordic kings as a symbol of unity
For political commentator Hans Engell, the sight of the three monarchs together represented cohesion among the Scandinavian countries.
“It was very expressive, and it was a strong image of unity and solidarity,” Engell told TV 2, describing its symbolic effect as particularly powerful.
Historian and royal expert Lars Hovbakke Sørensen also noted that it is unusual for all three Scandinavian kings to appear together in this way. Their presence carried both a personal and dynastic meaning because the Scandinavian royal families are closely connected.
Harald himself embodied those historical links. His paternal grandfather, King Haakon VII, was born Prince Carl of Denmark before becoming Norway’s king following the country’s independence in 1905. Harald’s mother, Crown Princess Märtha, was a Swedish princess.
The image therefore reflected centuries of connections between Denmark, Norway and Sweden, but experts argued that its meaning was also shaped by the present political environment.
The Nordic kings recalled the Three Kings Meeting of 1914
The scene in Oslo drew comparisons with one of the best-known episodes in modern Scandinavian cooperation: the Three Kings Meeting held in Malmö in December 1914.
At the beginning of the First World War, King Christian X of Denmark, King Haakon VII of Norway and King Gustav V of Sweden met in the Swedish city as their governments sought to maintain a common Scandinavian position towards the warring European powers.
According to Nordics.info, the Malmö meeting became an important milestone in twentieth-century Nordic cooperation and strengthened the idea of Scandinavian solidarity during a period of international instability.
Hovbakke Sørensen told TV 2 that the historical parallel makes the images from Harald’s funeral particularly significant.
“It is a tradition that goes back more than 100 years, and that is why it also appears enormously powerful when history is repeated in this way,” he said.
The circumstances are, however, fundamentally different. The Scandinavian monarchs today have constitutional and ceremonial roles and do not formulate foreign or defence policy. Their appearance together therefore does not represent a diplomatic initiative similar to the 1914 meeting.
Scandinavian security cooperation is closer than before
The symbolism nevertheless coincides with a period in which Nordic defence cooperation has become significantly more integrated.
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine changed the regional security landscape and led both Finland and Sweden to abandon long-standing military non-alignment. Finland joined NATO in April 2023, while Sweden became a member in March 2024.
Denmark and Norway were already founding members of the Alliance. All five Nordic countries are therefore now inside NATO, allowing defence cooperation to develop within a common alliance structure for the first time.
Jakob Linnet Schmidt, foreign policy analyst at the Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS) Centre for Peace Research, told TV 2 that the Nordic countries now share similar threat perceptions, particularly regarding Russia, while geography also gives them strong incentives to cooperate.
“There is both political will and practical opportunities to take cooperation further,” Schmidt said. “We are much closer now in defence and security policy than ever before.”
His research at DIIS focuses in part on Danish security and defence policy and changing threat perceptions.
Monarchies provide continuity rather than policy
The image of the three Nordic kings also comes during wider uncertainty in the transatlantic relationship and renewed tensions surrounding Greenland, alongside the continuing war in Ukraine.
TV 2’s experts argued that monarchies can communicate a form of historical continuity that elected governments cannot reproduce in the same way.
Hovbakke Sørensen said monarchs remain important national symbols precisely because royal families link present institutions to previous generations over long periods of time.
Engell similarly argued that three kings walking together in ceremonial uniforms can create a stronger visual symbol for the public than a conventional meeting between three prime ministers.
That symbolism does not replace the decisions taken by Nordic governments. But the funeral of King Harald produced an image that connected two different periods of Scandinavian history: the cooperation sought by three monarchs during the upheaval of 1914, and a Nordic region that in 2026 is more closely connected in security and defence than at any previous point in the NATO era.
