Constantine remained in exile for 40 years after the vote in favour of the republic, living in Italy and the United Kingdom. His gesture of kissing the ground upon arrival in Greece was also polemic as it was considered an act of provocation for the antiroyalists.
Abortive conspiracies in 1978 The posthumously published archives of Konstantinos Karamanlis, as well as the memoirs of Constantine's former marshal of the court, , revealed that from 1975 to 1978, Constantine was involved in a conspiracy to overthrow the democratic government, including the assassination of Karamanlis and a following referendum on the monarchy. Constantine's close confidant, Michail Arnaoutis, approached high-ranking officers to try to gain their support. After some naval officers approached expressed doubts that Arnaoutis spoke for the former king, the chief engineer of the fleet was invited to London, where Constantine confirmed the basic outline of the plot as relayed by Arnaoutis. Karamanlis was also alerted to Constantine's suspicious activities by the British secret services, who had apparently taped his conversations with Greek visitors. In October 1976, the Greek prime minister was informed by the British ambassador that Constantine, while not the driving force behind the conspiracy, was very much aware of it and did nothing to discourage it. The Rallis government was therefore asked to find a compromise solution. Although the royal entourage's preference for a
lay-in-state ceremony in
Athens metropolitan cathedral followed by a burial in Tatoi, the Rallis government, in the midst of fierce confrontations with the opposition, decided that both the funeral and the burial should take place in Tatoi to avoid the possibility of violent clashes between pro- and anti-royal supporters. Constantine and his family could only stay on Greek soil for six hours, as long as they needed to carry out their duties. The former royal family arrived at
Ellinikon airport and Constantine disembarked, bent down and kissed the ground. This token gesture added new fuel to the controversy, with some interpreting it as genuine love of country and others as hypocrisy. The funeral and burial took place under police protection. However, the police were unable to keep the crowds of supporters of the former king away from the site.
August 1993 At the funeral of King
Baudouin of Belgium, a private agreement was made between Constantine and the new conservative Greek prime minister,
Konstantinos Mitsotakis, that allowed Constantine and his family to temporarily return to Greece on a holiday. Constantine was accompanied by his wife Anne-Marie, their five children, and his sister Irene. The family had decided that yachting around Greece would be the best way to showcase the country to their children, who were unable to grow up within Greece. The legal basis of the dispute was determined by the interpretation of royal property as private or public. According to the royal family, the property was acquired by their predecessors through legal means (purchases) from their personal estates and was therefore considered the inheritance of the former king. In the eyes of the Greek public, however, the property was a by-product of the institution of the
monarchy and served to enable the supreme ruler to exercise his role as monarch. With the demise of the monarchy, the property should automatically pass to the state. In 1973, Decree No. 225 expropriated the movable and immovable property of the former king and members of the royal family for the benefit of the state. In September 1974, the government of National Salvation, headed by
Constantine Karamanlis revoked the junta's decree in anticipation of the referendum that would determine the country's constitution. Although the
referendum abolished the monarchy, the government did not proceed with the confiscation of property. Instead, it set up a seven-member commission to administer the property. This committee later handed over its responsibilities to the legal representative of the royal family in Greece, retired admiral Mario Stavridis. Thus, members of the royal family continued to declare their property as inherited and to file inheritance and income tax returns, and the tax administration continued to assess taxes and impose surcharges and fines. In 1984, Constantine took the initiative to approach the Greek government to settle the former royal family's tax debts to the Greek state. An agreement was finally reached in 1992, under the government of
Konstantinos Mitsotakis with Law 2086/1992. The agreement - which was never implemented - included the payment by the royal family of 183,000,000
drachmas in cash from the total amount of
inheritance tax due, while the rest was to be covered by the concession of to the state, to the "World Hippocratic Hospital Foundation and Research Centre" to be built a huge hospital complex, and to the "Tatoi National Park". In the agreement there was no specific provision for the so-called "summer palace" of Tatoi, for Mon Repo, for Polydendri and for mobile things. All these were considered the King's property. when
PASOK returned to power under, it abolished the previous law and replaced it with 2215/1994. The Law confiscated the King's property for the benefit of the state without the right to compensation and deprived the members of the royal family of their Greek citizenship. The royal family immediately appealed to the country's civil courts. Although upheld by the
Supreme Civil and Criminal Court of Greece, the decision was overturned by the
Council of State. The
Special Highest Court, to which the case was referred in 1997, agreed with the Council of State. All legal remedies in Greece had been depleted. The royal family therefore turned to the European courts. An appeal to the
European Commission of Human Rights was lodged by Constantine, Anna-Marie, their five children, Princess Irene and Princess Catherine. His sister,
Queen Sophia, did not take part because she had already renounced her rights to the estate. The court allowed the appeal, but only for Constantine,
Irene and
Catherine. In October 1998, the European Commission admitted the property issue when all 30 judges unanimously ruled that human rights had been violated and referred the matter to the European Court of Human Rights. The court also encouraged six months of meetings between Constantine and the Greek government to coordinate a settlement, however the Greek government refused. The court also defined the former king's litigation assets as private, ruling that the property that accompanied the institution of the monarchy had already been automatically transferred to the state, meaning that the Greek state could award Constantine monetary compensation, rather than returning his royal properties. The Greek State was therefore obliged to compensate the plaintiffs, setting the appropriate compensation at 1/40th of the amount claimed, i.e. 4.7
billion drachmas (13.7 million
euro). The court decision also ruled that Constantine's human rights were not violated by the Greek state's decision not to grant him Greek citizenship and passport unless he adopts a surname. Constantine said of this "the law basically said that I had to go out and acquire a name. The problem is that my family originates from Denmark and the Danish royal family haven't got a surname." On 20 December 2024, over two decades after the court ruling and almost two years after Constantine's death, his descendants received Greek citizenship upon adopting the surname "De Grèce" (Ντε Γκρες; "of Greece"), which had been used by
Prince Michael of Greece and Denmark, a first cousin of Constantine's father.
Movable property On 8 October 1990, the commissioner of the Royal Estate, Admiral Stavridis, submitted a request for the transfer of the family's "households goods" abroad. After secret talks with then Prime Minister
Constantine Mitsotakis, the government accepted the former king's request and on 22 November, the Greek Minister for the Economy,
Ioannis Palaiokrassas, and the Minister for Culture,
Tzannis Tzannetakis, issued a joint ministerial decision in order to check, register and mark the objects in the collection which were probably prohibited from leaving the country. In February 1991, when the transfer process began, customs officials, an archaeologist and a representative of the National Gallery carried out the registration of the objects. This work was characterized by haste and sloppiness, and did not meet scientific standards. Nevertheless, the list was submitted to the
National Gallery in April 1992, although it has not been used for cross-checking since. On 17 February 1991, nine containers weighing 32 tonnes and containing 1904 boxes were loaded onto a ship leaving
Piraeus for the port of
Tilbury and the former royal residence in London. When a dock worker at the port alerted the newspapers to the transfer, it became public knowledge, and a heated debate ensued. The
opposition claimed that underworld methods had been used, as Parliament had not been informed and all discussions and negotiations had taken place in secret, while public discourse questioned the legality of the transfer and assurances that it would not affect the public interest. What further discredited the operation of transferring the heirlooms was when it was revealed, 10 years later, that on 13 February 1991, while the place was under guard, a major break-in and robbery of objects of incalculable value took place. The list of stolen goods included jewellery, valuable religious icons, works of art and objects that were classified as unique works of
cultural heritage and could not be legally exported. However, both the
Hellenic Police and Konstantinos' entourage concealed the fact and did not take legal action to solve the theft. In 2007, 850 valuable objects belonging to the royal estate were auctioned by
Christie's in London. Constantine denied that he was the vendor - he claimed that they had already been sold in 1991 to third parties who auctioned them but journalists disputed the claim. The Greek government, through then Culture Minister
Georgios Voulgarakis, tried to stop the auction, claiming that the items may have been illegally exported from Greece, but the attempt failed. ==Later life==