The Government unloads in the Zarzuela the decision of the return of the emeritus

The Government looks at the Zarzuela. Let the Casa del Rey decide in its own way and in due course if it allows the return of Juan Carlos I and where it intends to host him. Download all responsibility for the decision to the Head of State. He wants Felipe VI to be the one to take the initiative. It contrasts with the more proactive attitude of a year and a half ago, when day by day the news hit the headlines about the opaque business of the monarch emeritus, “disturbing” news, as defined by Pedro Sánchez, and which led to his expatriation in August of 2020 to United Arab Emirates. Now the moment is different, and the Executive is hiding in that it does not “correspond” to him to give an opinion.

The Swiss Prosecutor’s Office on Monday shelved the criminal investigation that weighed on Juan Carlos I – although it did not charge him at any time – for the collection of 100 million dollars (almost 65 million euros) in 2008 by the Saudi Arabian monarchy, money that he later donated to his ex-lover Corinna Larsen. Of course, the prosecutor Yves Bertossa stressed that both the king and the businesswoman of Danish origin had “a desire to hide” the funds using the Lucum Foundation, created in Panama, and companies based in tax havens (Bahamas). The folder in the Swiss country clears the judicial future of the former head of state. The foreseeable thing, then, is that the Public Ministry closes the three criminal proceedings opened against him. But apart from the fact that Juan Carlos I can get rid of criminal responsibility, the truth is that the existence of those 65 million and the operations through Lucum are unquestionable, as well as the two tax regularizations, amounting to more than five million euros, for which he confessed that he had committed fraud to the public purse.

“Absolute respect for the Justice of other States, and in this case for the Swiss Prosecutor’s Office. In the case of the Office of the Prosecutor of our country, they know that it is autonomous and that the Government cannot and should not express itself in this regard,” he said succinctly on Tuesday. the spokeswoman for the Executive, Isabel Rodríguez, after the ordinary meeting of the Cabinet. When asked about the return of the emeritus king, who could be closer, the minister stressed that it is not a matter on which the Government must “pronounce itself.” “It is a decision that corresponds to the emeritus king, and of course we will be respectful with the decision that will be adopted within the Royal House regarding his return,” he dispatched, without giving further clues. From Congress, his party partner and parliamentary spokesman, Héctor Gómez, added that, if there is no impediment, it is the former head of state who must warn of his return and that so far he has not publicly transferred “his desire, will or confirmation “of coming to Spain. “And we respect that silence,” he added.

The Executive suffers every time he is asked about this question. His discomfort is palpable. Moncloa sources told this newspaper that so far they have not received any information from the Zarzuela that the return of the emeritus is imminent or close in time, so a logistics operation is not underway. The official spokesman for the Crown, for his part, declined to comment on any of the “speculations & rdquor; around the return of Juan Carlos. In the environment of this, they have made it known in recent months that he would like to live seasons in Spain and set foot in La Zarzuela, his son’s private residence as it was previously his own.

Living seasons in Spain

A year and a half ago, the Government ostensibly pushed the Crown to make a decision regarding the retired monarch, due to the magnitude of the reputational damage it was doing to the institution. The president, Pedro Sánchez, was very explicit – “We are being witnesses, the whole of Spanish society, of disturbing information, which disturbs us all, me too” – and the pressure from Moncloa and the dialogue with the Zarzuela, led by the then first vice president, Carmen Calvo, and the head of the House, Jaime Alfonsín. At that time, the possibility of Juan Carlos staying in a National Heritage residence – an autonomous body dependent on the Ministry of the Presidency that manages and makes available to citizens the historical-artistic heritage of the Crown – or Heritage of the State – the general direction that administers the property of the State, attached to the Treasury. Today the dialogue, on the part of the Executive, is led by the head of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños. The Government allows it to be done, it prefers that it be Felipe VI who makes the decisions and negotiates the ideal solution in dialogue with his father.

Those who participated in the conversations with the Zarzuela point out that the emeritus, once the criminal investigation in Spain is archived, must return since there would be no cause to justify his expatriation, although this should be accompanied by the implementation of the modernization of the Crown, an operation now fallow, as Rodríguez explained last week, because the Government’s priority is economic recovery and continuing the fight against the pandemic. “He could spend time in Spain and abroad. This would try to provide him with a minimum logistics and security personality so that he can live in a decent way,” say these same sources, who rule out the option that the emeritus can stay in Private residences of businessmen friends of his, for the “dignity” of the position he held. “We must let him come and go and naturalize all this. That he does not return now or that the Crown is not modernized is not going in the right direction,” they emphasize.

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The socialists are aware that they defend an institutional position, to safeguard the institution, which is far from both the criticism of their left allies (and the theses of United We Can, a partner in the coalition) and the exaltation of the formations of the right. Thus, while ERC proposes that Juan Carlos I return, but to be judged or to live in a humble area and far from opulence. “If you want to return to Spain that you live in an apartment of 60 square meters, in a working-class neighborhood and collect the minimum contributory pension, so that you know another reality, which is that of the vast majority of the population,” said the spokesman on Tuesday Republican, Gabriel Rufián, who warned of the problem of “ethics” facing the emeritus, beyond legal cases. Because you have to wonder, he continued, reports EFE, if “it is ethical for a monarch to receive 65 million euros from a Saudi king or if it is ethical for these millions to be distributed in accounts in tax havens.”

JxCat wants the former head of state to be tried for having stolen the money of “many Spaniards”, and United We can censure the “impunity” enjoyed by the Crown and again demand that he be investigated in parliament. On the right, the PP spokesperson, Cuca Gamarra, stressed that Juan Carlos I can come to his country “when and how he wants” and condemned the attacks against him that seek, in his opinion, to weaken the Monarchy. Along the same lines, Edmundo Bal, from Cs, considers that he should not be the one to tell Felipe VI’s father what to do or what not to do.