On Saturday, 15 August, on the meadow in front of the castle in Vaduz, Hereditary Prince Alois announced something the principality had debated for decades and settled on a single Wednesday. Salic law, which barred women from the throne, has been abolished.

"It is my pleasure to inform you of a decision of great significance for our House, an issue debated within the family, in various ways, for decades," Alois said. The formal procedure began late last year, and on Wednesday it secured the required two-thirds majority among family members with voting rights.

Neither government nor referendum

This is where the story becomes more interesting than the news itself. This was not a government decision, nor a reform put to a popular vote. In Liechtenstein the rules of succession live in the House Law - a body of family norms with centuries of history and constitutional recognition. So the ruling family itself decides who may sit on the throne and under what conditions. A two-thirds majority, but within its own family.

Is that democracy, or a family decision with constitutional weight? Formally - the latter. In practice - nobody in the principality was asked.

Absolute primogeniture, but not for anyone already born

"With this amendment, all female descendants of the Princely House will have the same rights of participation as men in matters regulated by the House Law. In addition, succession to the throne will change from male-preference primogeniture to absolute primogeniture," the hereditary prince explained. First child, regardless of sex - heir or heiress.

Except, according to the local newspaper Vaterland, the new rule will not touch family members who have already been born. In an interview Alois confirmed the change applies to future births. So Joseph Wenzel, born in 1995 as the first of four children of Alois and Duchess Sophie, remains heir to the throne. Marie Caroline, born in 1996, remains behind her brother - even though the right that will only benefit her descendants now formally exists.

It is a classic Balkan pattern, if you like: the reform is adopted, praised, and applies to someone not yet born. Nobody will contest it because it affects nobody alive.

The last in Europe

Until Saturday, Liechtenstein was the only one of Europe's ten reigning monarchies in which a woman could not come to the throne. Sweden took the same step in the 1980s, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands and Denmark after it, Britain in 2013. Liechtenstein, 160 square kilometres between Switzerland and Austria, waited until 2026.

Alois is the eldest son of Prince Hans-Adam II and Princess Marie, and since 15 August 2004 has been head of state as his father's deputy. So the announcement fell exactly on the twenty-second anniversary of the day he took office - on the National Day, between the public gathering in central Vaduz and the traditional illumination of the mountains at dusk.

"With these changes we want to ensure that responsibility for the House and for the country falls in future to whoever is best prepared for those duties," Alois said. The sentence sounds like a management principle. In the context of a family that spent decades unable to agree on whether daughters exist in a legal sense, it also sounds slightly late.