Felipe VI stages a break with his father

2023-05-01 21:56:47

It happened between Carlos IV and Fernando VII at the dawn of the 19th century. Between Isabel II and Alfonso XII after the first republican experience. To Juan de Borbón and Juan Carlos I during the Franco regime. And today King Emeritus with Felipe VI. It’s almost a Bourbon dynastic tradition: ‘kill’ the father to save the throne for the family. Not physically, but politically. Those abdications and games of thrones of the family that has headed the Head of State in Spain since 1714 (with exceptions), apparently extemporaneous, have returned with force in the 21st century.

Juan Carlos I returns to Sanxenxo with the applause of the PP, a seafood menu and a republican activist to receive him

Further

At least officially, the current king has definitively broken relations with his father, who abdicated in 2014 due to the gap that had been caused between the monarchy and society by the succession of stipends and scandals that surrounded the end of his reign with a management of the crisis. economy marked by deep social cuts. the epitome was hunting in botswana in all luxury and where an accident revealed why he had not visited his grandson in the hospital, wounded by a shotgun self-discharge, and the existence of a lover, Corinna Larsen.

The rupture has not remained in the private sphere, but the king has wanted to record it. “We do not comment on anything related to the Majesty of him, King Juan Carlos. Nothing ”, was Zarzuela’s response when questioned by this means about the unexpected stopover of the king emeritus in Vitoria during his recent visit to Spain to skipper his sailboat, the Bribón, in the Atlantic waters of Sanxenxo for just a few hours.

The differences between the trip three weeks ago and the one a year ago are remarkable. The first visit of Juan Carlos de Borbón to Spain after his (supposedly voluntary) exile in the capital of the United Arab Emirates caused a tremendous media uproar that overwhelmed Zarzuela, and before which Moncloa stood out.

The press followed the ex-monarch’s movements to the millimetre, who left a lapidary phrase that summarizes his reign when the press present in the town of Pontevedra asked him about his tax irregularities and the scandals that shook the end of his term and the beginning of that of his heir . “Explanations for what?” he said, smug.

After haggling in Sanxenxo, Juan Carlos de Borbón went to Madrid, where he was received by the king, his son, in what had been his residence for decades, the Palacio de la Zarzuela. The Casa del Rey issued a brief statement without a single reproach and that left the door open for his father to re-establish his residence in Spain.

A year later, that option seems unlikely. Without going, at least as far as is known, to the extreme of Alfonso XII, who expressly prohibited his mother Isabel II from living in Spain through various letters signed by Antonio Cánovas del Castillo (main architect of the fraudulent political system during the Bourbon Restoration). The alleged reason: that the presence of the former queen, whose mandate is pointed out by historiography as corruptprevented the regeneration and settlement of the new kingdom to launch a “new era”.

It was the last quarter of the 19th century. But, saving historical distances, it is a letter that could well have been sent (perhaps by email or WhatsApp) from Madrid to Abu Dhabi. Because the second visit of Juan Carlos I to Spain has revealed the definitive break between Felipe VI and his father, at least in the face of public opinion since fundamental economic issues still remain.

First, the ex-monarch’s trip was known by the media through what has been called “environment of the emeritus king”, and which is reduced to his court of friends and some businessmen who maintain a relationship with him. But not only the Spanish found out from the press: the King of Spain himself did. At least that is what Zarzuela communicated. “We have learned about that trip through the media,” an official spokesperson told elDiario.es and the rest of the journalists who asked when Juan Carlos I’s intentions were known.

In 2022, an official visit by Felipe VI to the Emirates paved the way for the first fleeting return of Juan Carlos I. In 2023, the king tried by all means to ignore his father, to the point that Zarzuela twice denied the excuse used by the emeritus to justify his trip, a supposed lunch with the King of the United Kingdom, Carlos III. Zarzuela received help precisely from the British Royal House and Government, who supported the denial.

The situation between the two has reached the point of denying each other in the media. Despite the official denial by both monarchies, the “environment of the emeritus” assured El Mundo that he had indeed met with Carlos III in London. Zarzuela’s response was early and unilateral: “A while after the British denied the meeting with Carlos III again, the British ambassador called the Head of the House to tell him that there had been no type of meeting between Carlos III and King Juan Carlos.

funeral reunion

Unlike what happened a year ago, on this second visit Juan Carlos de Borbón has not been received by his son, and no one from the family has gone to meet the expatriarch, unless it has been reported.

In the last year, Felipe VI and his predecessor on the throne have only seen each other twice, as far as is known. And both, at royal funerals. The first, after the death of Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, with whom the Bourbons have a distant blood relationship.

The event left a photo that the Spanish had not seen for a long time: the two living kings that the country has had, together. Zarzuela explained that it was a matter of protocol and that the location of both was a decision of the British Royal House.

Be that as it may, the image was not repeated during the funeral of Constantine of Greece, Sofia’s brother and, therefore, brother-in-law of Juan Carlos de Borbón and uncle of Felipe VI. And that everything indicated that it would happen because the personal relationship between the two families is, obviously, much more intense than with the British one. In fact, the emeritus queen enjoyed Marivent Palace with her family for decades, and she did it again this Holy Week.

But Constantine’s funeral left another image, perhaps more shocking for many: Felipe VI, Queen Letizia and the queen emeritus mourning the death of their family member. In the image, no trace of the brother-in-law of the deceased, husband of the grieving sister, father of the grieving nephew and father-in-law of the niece-in-law, rehabilitated by the Greeks after the public rudeness a few years ago with Sofía in the Cathedral of Palma. The photo was published by the Casa del Rey itself.

Unofficially, on the other hand, a recording circulated in which it was possible to see how Felipe VI did greet his father affectionately during the burial. In the sequence, broadcast by the Greek television channel Star, the smiling monarch could be seen giving two kisses and patting Juan Carlos I on the shoulder, with whom he exchanged a few words. These images were not shared by the State Headquarters, which is trying to distance itself from the emeritus.

Juan Carlos is still formally a member of the Royal Family, but Zarzuela no longer considers him so ‘de facto’. “We take care of the official agenda of the Majesty of him the King and the Majesty of him the Queen of him. Don Juan Carlos has been withdrawn from all public activity for years, ”said an official spokesman for the Casa del Rey, who ignored that they do report the activity of another person: Sofía from Greece.

The emeritus king left Spain in the private ‘jet’ owned by the Emirati sheikh with which he arrived, but before stopping in Vitoria. An unplanned two-day stop, supposedly for a medical check-up. Supposedly because, once again, Zarzuela ignored one of the members of the Royal Family: “Wrong window. We do not have, nor give, nor confirm anything related to Don Juan Carlos. It is he who makes public what he considers convenient for himself, for his lawyer or for what the media call ‘his environment’”.

The fiasco of the visit of Juan Carlos has closed with a plot twist one of those who make series writers gold: the publication of the existence of a supposed secret and bastard daughter of the emeritus king. A denied information for that “environment” to which Zarzuela systematically refers and that this Monday has been denied by the alleged daughter.

Back in Abu Dhabi, it seems that the road is closed so that Juan Carlos de Borbón can spend the time he has left in Spain, as was his wish. The emeritus king, who was born in Rome, lived in Estoril and now lives in the Middle East, sees how his son denies him in public. Just as he did with his own father, Juan de Borbón, who did not renounce his dynastic rights until many years after his son had been designated heir to the dictator Franco.

Felipe VI has publicly broken with his father. But in private he still has to sort out a lot of papers. For example, the waiver of inheritance in tax havens that he made public in full citizen ‘shock’ at the arrival of the pandemic and the state of alarm. A resignation that will have to be formally confirmed to go from word to fact.