The civil list is a part of the state budget in monarchies , which is given at the personal disposal of the monarch , for the needs of his and his house. [1] In the republics, the content of the civil list is occupied by the content of the President of the Republic.
Civil List and Monarchy Type
The civil list can appear only when the personal expenses of the monarch begin to separate from the general government expenditures and be determined by exact and constant norms; therefore, the civil list in the exact sense of the word is possible only in constitutional monarchies . In unlimited monarchies, this term can only be used by analogy . In the era of enlightened absolutism, they wanted to set off a pattern in the use of public funds, in the Church area it remained until the end of its existence.
History of the concept
The civil list - that is, the income of the monarch as such, constituting an article in the state budget - differs from the income of the monarch or his family members derived from the property they own as private individuals (in Rome , cus , fisum , bonum scatullae , later - inheritances, royal or crown domains, office properties, Schatullgut , Kabinetsgut , apanages ). For the first time the civil list appeared in England , in the time of William III , when this name began to denote that part (approximately half) of the budget, which was appropriated by parliament to the king’s uncontrolled order, but which then included, besides the expenses of the court, the costs of all civil administration. Gradually, civilian administration expenses fell away, and at the beginning of the reign of Queen Victoria , a civil list of 385,000 pounds sterling was established solely on the expenses of the court and associated with it; he was later raised to 407,774 pounds sterling, and under Edward VII he was appointed in the amount of 409,452 pounds sterling. The civil list does not include certain allocations for special purposes, which are sometimes temporary in nature (when daughters are married, sons and kings are married, etc.), sometimes they are lengthy. From England, the term “civil list” passed into the era of enlightened absolutism in some unlimited monarchies, where it soon fell into disuse, and then, in the 19th century , in constitutional monarchies, where it was greatly developed and entered into the texts of many constitutions .
The composition of the civil sheet
As a general rule, the civil sheet includes:
- monarch's personal expenses,
- the cost of the yard (but not on the office, the states of which are set separately),
- the costs of promoting art ( theaters , art galleries, etc.),
- Charity costs.
The extraordinary expenses of the head of state (travel, etc.) are usually covered by special allocations; similarly, the spouses of the monarch and the heir to the throne in many countries allocate special subsidies ( dotations de la couronne ) for the maintenance of the court, while in other countries it is assumed to be included in the civil list. In most states, the civil list is determined by parliament at the beginning of the reign of each sovereign for the entire duration of his rule. It is allowed to change it by agreement of the crown and parliament, to which it is extremely rarely resorted, preferring to change the civil list indirectly, with loans for special purposes. Less often, a civil list is appointed for a certain (10-year) term, even less often - for an indefinite period, that is, while preserving the right of parliament and the crown to change the dimensions of the civil sheet at any given moment.
The size of the civil sheet in different countries
In the UK, the civil list in 2003 was approximately 9.9 million pounds.
In Sweden, the size of the civil leaf each year is determined by the Riksdag .
In France, a civilian list of 25 million francs was first established by the Constituent Assembly in 1791 , and the king was deprived of his other incomes. The civil list was canceled by the legislature in 1792 , but it was restored to the same extent with the restoration of the monarchy in 1804 , and Napoleon actually significantly increased it through special funds and unaccountable profits from military requisition. During the restoration, the civil list was equal to the same amount, with Louis-Philippe (who possessed significant personal property) was reduced to 12 million, with the Second Republic destroyed and restored under Napoleon III in the previous amount of 25 million; finally canceled after the fall of the empire on September 6, 1870 .
In the German Empire there was no civil sheet; The German emperor was content with the income that he received as a Prussian king (from 1889 - 15 million marks ).
In Austria-Hungary, the civil list, appointed for a 10-year term, was determined in 1870 to be 4,650,000 guilders for each of the two states of the entire monarchy (Austria and Hungary); the same norm was retained for the following periods of 1880–89, 1890–99, and 1900–09.
In Italy, the civil list at the beginning of the 20th century was 15,050,000 lire , in Spain it was 7 million pesetas (besides, lots = 2.5 million pesetas).
Undoing the UK civil sheet
In Great Britain for a long time the civil list was established at the same time for the whole term of the monarch's rule. However, under Elizabeth II, the pound sterling noticeably depreciated, which forced the parliament to switch to the practice of annually reviewing the size of the civil leaf [2] . Finally, on April 1, 2012, the “Act on the royal grant”, which canceled the civil list, entered into force in Great Britain [3] . Instead, it introduced an annually approved royal grant. (see the Crown Property article)
See also
- Appanage
Notes
- ↑ Belgian King's Civil List (English)
- ↑ Polyakova, A. A. The role of the monarchy in the domestic and foreign policy of Great Britain at the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st centuries. Thesis for the degree of candidate of historical sciences. - M., 2015. - P. 175. Access mode: http://mgimo.ru/science/diss/rol-monarkhii.php
- ↑ Polyakova, A. A. The role of the monarchy in the domestic and foreign policy of Great Britain at the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st centuries. Thesis for the degree of candidate of historical sciences. - M., 2015. - P. 172. Access mode: http://mgimo.ru/science/diss/rol-monarkhii.php
Links
- The Civil List is an article from the Great Soviet Encyclopedia .
- Civil List // Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary : 86 t. (82 t. And 4 add.). - SPb. , 1890-1907.