Andorra, the country with two princes

Two lords, one valley

Andorra is a cluster of mountain valleys in the southern Pyrenees, between France to the north and east and Spain to the south and west.^[3] Legend says Charlemagne founded it in thanks for local help against the Muslims. The first document to mention it is the act consecrating the cathedral of Santa Maria d’Urgell in the mid-9th century, which lists Andorra’s parishes as fiefs of the counts of Urgell.^[4]

Andorra later passed from the counts of Urgell to the bishops of Urgell. In the late 13th century a property quarrel between the bishops and the French heirs to the countship, the counts of Foix, gave Andorra its two-headed allegiance.^[3] The fight between the bishopric and the Castellbò–Foix family had gone on for nearly a century.^[2]

The pareatge of 1278

On 8 September 1278, in Lleida, Bishop Pere d’Urtx and Count Roger Bernat of Foix accepted an arbitrators’ ruling, the pareatge. Of its twelve clauses, three are about Andorra. The two lords’ officials would judge cases together. They would take turns collecting the main tax, the quèstia, the bishop in one year and the count in the next. Each could raise soldiers from Andorra, but never use them against the other.^[2] A second pareatge followed in 1288.^[4]

The historian Albert Villaró argues that the deal lasted because the two lords were evenly matched: a bishop backed by the papacy against an increasingly powerful count. Had one been much stronger, he says, Andorra would likely have been absorbed like other Pyrenean valleys.^[2]

From counts to presidents

The Foix half of the title passed to the king of France and then, with the French Republic, to the French president. The other half has stayed with the bishops of Urgell.^[4] For centuries Andorra was run jointly by the two princes’ representatives, each of whom received a small yearly tribute. This feudal system stayed in place until 1993.^[3] Andorrans ran local affairs through a council first set up in 1419, the forerunner of today’s General Council.^[4]

The 1993 constitution

In 1993 Andorran voters approved a constitution that moved most of the co-princes’ powers to an elected parliament, the General Council, and created separate executive, legislative and judicial branches. Andorra could now tax, run its own foreign policy and join international bodies. It joined the UN in 1993 and the Council of Europe in 1994.^[3]

The co-princes are still, “jointly and indivisibly”, the head of state, with equal powers. They sign laws and treaties, appoint the head of government after an election and receive foreign envoys, but most of their acts must be countersigned by the head of government or the parliament’s speaker, who takes political responsibility for them.^[1]

“The Coprinces, an institution which dates from the Pareatges and their historical evolution, are in their personal and exclusive right, the Bishop of Urgell and the President of the French Republic.”^[1]

A bishop as head of state today

In practice, having a bishop as head of state means abortion is banned in Andorra; the constitution protects the right to life “in its different phases”, wording included to suit the bishop. The Holy See has warned that if abortion were legalised, the bishop would have to step down as co-prince. In 2023 the government said it was looking for a way to decriminalise abortion without authorising it.^[5]

The bishops change on the Church’s timetable, not Andorra’s. Joan-Enric Vives became co-prince in 2003 and served alongside four French presidents. On 31 May 2025 Josep-Lluís Serrano Pentinat, a Vatican diplomat aged 48 when he was named his successor, became bishop and co-prince.^[6] Andorra is not in the EU. In July 2026 the EU’s Council approved signing an association agreement that would bring it into the EU’s internal market.^[3][7]