Vienna is soon threatened with a royal visit: Spain’s monarch Felipe VI. will be the guest of Federal President Alexander Van der Bellen in the Hofburg on January 31st. The President’s Office confirmed the official visit on Monday and thus earlier media reports. According to the Spanish magazine “Vanitatis”, King Felipe will celebrate his 54th birthday on January 30th and then set off for Vienna with his wife Letizia, where the two are also to open an art exhibition.
This is the exhibition “Dalí – Freud. An Obsession” in the Belvedere. The Spanish surrealist Salvador Dalí was a big fan of the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud. This was also reflected in his work, as announced in the exhibition. In July 1938 the two met in London. Freud was on the run from the National Socialists, Dalí had left Spain because of the civil war raging there (1936-39). A wreath-laying ceremony in memory of the victims of National Socialism is also planned for Monday.
The Spanish media reports on the planned visit to Van der Bellen also pointed out that the Hofburg was formerly the residence of the Austrian Habsburg Emperors. From the 15th century, these had also left their mark in Spain as “los Austrias”. After all, with a clever marriage policy, they had been able to expand their influence over large parts of Europe.
Ultimately, the “Casa de Austria” ruled over Spain for almost two centuries. In the 16th century, under Emperor Charles V, Spain was part of the Habsburg Empire “on which the sun never set”. His son Philip II continued to expand the colonial possessions. At the same time, the Habsburgs guaranteed the autonomy of the two entities of the Spanish kingdom: Castile and Aragon.
Official relations between Austria and Spain have also been very close at times in the recent past: after the end of the dictatorship of the nationalist Generalísimo Francisco Franco, Spain became a hereditary parliamentary monarchy again in 1975. The first trip abroad by the then 40-year-old King Juan Carlos I de Borbón y Borbón – the father of the current king – then led to Austria in 1978, not least because of the common history.
In 2007 Juan Carlos was the last time a Spanish monarch was in Austria. Together with the then Federal President Heinz Fischer, he opened the headquarters of the OSCE (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe) in Palais Palffy-Erdödy. In 2014 Juan Carlos abdicated in favor of his son Felipe Juan Pablo Alfonso de Todos los Santos de Borbon y Grecia, as his full name is.
With Felipe VI. Federal President Van der Bellen met twice in autumn 2019: In October, the two sat at a table in Japan’s capital Tokyo at dinner when the new “Tenno”, Emperor Naruhito, ascended the chrysanthemum throne. At the beginning of December there was a reunion in Madrid. On the occasion of the 25th UN Climate Change Conference, the two heads of state held talks on bilateral relations and the climate crisis.
In mid-April 2020, Van der Bellen and Felipe VI spoke on the phone. according to the President’s Office, to exchange views on the situation at the time in the corona crisis in both countries and in Europe. The virus, which is still virulent, was also considered a potential disruptive factor this time.