the historian said Paul Preston, in an interview published in this newspaper in November 2020, that the main objective of a monarch “is keep his family on the throne & rdquor; and that, whenever the behavior of Felipe VI is analyzed in the face of his father’s scandals, it must be kept in mind. With this maxim of the Hispanist, author of the biography ‘Juan Carlos. The king of a people’, it is understood that the Zarzuela has tried to make the emeritus’s first visit to Spain run as correctly as possible, so that the institution of the monarchy was not harmed. However, it will not be like that. And the first images that the citizens are going to see upon their return, after he got rid of justice due to the prescription of crimes, for being inviolable and for the regularizations, have been in Sanxenxo (Pontevedra) to follow a regatta in the that his ship will participate from this Friday: the ‘Bribón’.
Juan Carlos I landed in Vigo this Thursday at a quarter past seven in the afternoon from Abu Dhabi (United Arab Emirates), where he has lived since August 2020. At the foot of the plane, he was received by his daughter Elena, with whom he merged into a hug. The emeritus traveled accompanied by the security service and his staff. Usually, in his Emirati life, he has three bodyguards and an assistant.
organization problems
After months in which the press published numerous reports about his hidden fortune, the monarch went to live abroad with the purpose, as he wrote to his son in a letter, of “facilitating” Felipe VI to carry out his “high responsibility” with “tranquillity” Y “quiet”. But neither of these two qualities will characterize his first visit to Spain after almost two years of absence. La Zarzuela had different plans for this stay, which has suffered from organization problems and communication between father and son.
The lack of fluidity in the relationship between the two monarchs has reached unsuspected levels this past year. Despite the filtrationlast October, that the state prosecutor’s office would file the proceedings on Juan Carlos, something that did not arrive until March 2, the emeritus did not communicate in those months to his son what he intended to do with his future: if he would stay to live abroad or return to reside in Spain.
EL PERIÓDICO DE CATALUNYA published in October that his intention was only to return for seasonsto visit family and friends, and to live abroad again, information that could not be contrasted with the King’s House, because I didn’t have it. It was not until March 7 when, in another letter to his son, Juan Carlos I let him know his plans.
Throughout this process, the two people who have ‘represented’ the former head of state in contacts with Zarzuela and with the Government, specifically with the Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, have been his lawyer, Javier Sanchez-Junco, and the former director of the CNI Félix Sanz Roldan.
The Executive, through the president himself, Pedro Sanchez and other ministers, has publicly demanded that Juan Carlos I need to give “explanations” for his hidden fortune, something that, according to sources close to the emeritus, will not happen. These sources and also members of the Council of Ministers have commented to this newspaper that the former head of state he is not aware of having done anything “wrong”. In the March letter to his son, which was written in various hands with suggestions from the Government and also from Zarzuela, Juan Carlos I finally agreed to include that he “sincerely” regrets; the “past events & rdquor; of his “private & rdquor; although, in the same sentence, he remembered his “contribution” to democracy in the history of Spain.
Lunch and return to Abu Dhabi
After the days in Galicia, the emeritus will travel to Madrid to have lunch with his family on Monday, although he will not stay to sleep in the Zarzuela and will return to Abu Dhabi that same day. In the palace he will see, according to the King’s House, his son, Queen Sofia, and “other members of his family.” He has not seen his wife since 2020, since, unlike his daughtersCristina and Elena and some of the grandchildrenhas not traveled to the United Arab Emirates to visit him.
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In Spain, Juan Carlos I only has the examination of the Treasury inspectors pending to certify that the two tax adjustments he made are “complete and truthful”, but in London (United Kingdom) the process initiated by his ex-lover has not yet been resolved. Corinna Larsen against him for alleged espionage and harassment. Larsen, who came to public attention in 2012 for the hunt in Botswanaaccuses the monarch of harassing and defamatory behavior, for which he would have dedicated himself to damaging his image before his family and friends.
Zarzuela is expected to publish a photo, which will be historic, of the reunion of Juan Carlos I with his family after his self-exile. That is the first that Felipe VI would have liked to see of this first visit, which would have been quiet and without so many cameras. But “no one commands King Juan Carlos,” admitted a member of the Sánchez government on Wednesday.