Queen Margrethe II will formally announce the engagement at a cabinet meeting Oct. 8, putting an end to two years of speculation.

Prince Frederik, 35, the elder of the queen’s two sons, met the 31-year-old Australian during the 2000 Sydney Olympics, introduced by Spain’s Prince Felipe.

The couple has been making joint public appearances for more than a year, going to weddings, parties and on holidays together.

Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen confirmed that he had “been informed by her majesty of the happy news” several weeks ago.

Under the Danish constitution, government and parliament must approve the marriage of the descendants of the throne.

“I informed the parties in parliament on Tuesday evening and they all gave their approval for this union, and I have agreed with the queen that the engagement will be announced at the next cabinet meeting,” Rasmussen said.

The date for the wedding has not yet been announced, though media reports suggested that it could take place either early or in the middle of next year.

If they do marry, it would mark the first time an Australian would enter a European royal house. Donaldson would also be in line to become Denmark’s queen. The couple will appear together at their first news conference Oct. 8, the palace said.

Danish national television TV2 interrupted its regular programming to announce the royal engagement, which Danes, who are fiercely attached to the royal family, had awaited with anticipation.

Prince Frederik has had a series of relationships with Danish women in the past, but he chose in the end to marry a foreigner and a commoner.

Donaldson would not be the first commoner to become part of the royal family.

In 1995, Frederik’s brother, Prince Joachim, married British commoner Alexandra Christina Manley of Hong Kong, now Princess Alexandra.

Queen Margrethe herself married Count Henri la Laborde de Monpezat, a French diplomat, in 1967.

The Crown Prince’s romance was kept secret until a Danish celebrity magazine in late 2001 reported that Frederik was dating a brunette from Tasmania.

Media have since called Donaldson “the perfect princess” and described her as “sweet and good-looking.” They repeatedly have underlined her elegant and fashionable dresses, and the fact that Donaldson has a law degree.

“She simply has what it takes to be a queen in the Danish monarchy,” a newspaper wrote in January 2002.

After Christmas 2002, one magazine reported that Donaldson was Frederik’s first girlfriend ever to celebrate the holiday with the royal family. Earlier that month, her parents visited Copenhagen’s downtown Amalienborg Palace where the royal family lives.

While taking part in a yacht regatta in Donaldson’s hometown of Hobart in January 2003, Frederik described her for the first time as his girlfriend.

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