 The new instrument explicitly limits the king to ceremonial functions and, among other things, to be regularly informed of affairs of state.As head of the House of Bernadotte Carl Gustaf has also been able to make a number of decisions about the titles and positions of its members.The king's heir apparent, after passage on 1 January 1980 of a new law establishing absolute primogeniture (the first such law passed in Western European history), is Crown Princess Victoria, the eldest child of the King and his wife, Queen Silvia.