The royal march: to each his own

The ban has been lifted and a merciless hunt for the King Emeritus, as if he were a Botswana elephant, has begun from government circles. The separatist parties that support the government have put pressure on the president, letting him know that the presence of Juan Carlos I in the palace of La Zarzuela made his support for the approval of the General State Budget unviable. From within the coalition government, his second vice-president - who has stated urbi et orbe that his main political objective was to expel the perfidious Bourbons from Spain and establish the Third Republic - has put strong pressure on Pedro Sánchez and has demanded the expulsion of the King Emeritus, not only from La Zarzuela, but also from Spain, the abdication of Felipe VI because he is his father's son, the repeal of the Constitution and the proclamation of a plurinational Republic. Sánchez has not disowned Pablo Iglesias for his furious attacks on the head of state, nor has he publicly defended him, as deep down he shares the republican ideas of his Rasputin, and has in turn urged Felipe VI and his immediate entourage - through his second vice-president, Carmen Calvo - to promote the departure of the King Emeritus from Spain, following the instructions of the official guru of the Kingdom, Iván Redondo.

The result of this intolerable pressure was the letter of 3 August from Juan Carlos I to his son, in which he informed him that "in view of the public repercussions that certain past events in my private life are generating", he had taken the precaution of "moving me out of Spain at this time". The text of the letter was published in a communiqué from the House of HM the King, which indicated that Philip VI had conveyed to his father "his heartfelt respect and gratitude for his decision", and highlighted the historical importance of the reign of Juan Carlos I "as a legacy and political and institutional work in the service of Spain and democracy".

From the letter and the communiqué, it can be deduced that the departure of the King Emeritus has been agreed upon by the Royal House and the Government, that Philip VI has recognized his father and is happy with his departure, that Don Juan Carlos has moved abroad "for the time being" and that he intends to return when he pleases or when he is eventually summoned by the judicial authorities, as a result of the investigation initiated by the Office of the Procurator of the Supreme Court, which will be limited to acts carried out by him after June 2014, when - on account of his abdication - he lost the inviolability he enjoyed under article 56-3 of the Constitution.

I believe that things are being driven out of hand, including by some people who claim to be supporters of the monarchy. Although they are not easily separable, a certain distinction can be made between the public and private life of a Head of State - whether King or President of the Republic - especially when - as in the case of Juan Carlos I - he is no longer a Head of State. The former is in the realm of politics and the latter in the realm of ethics. As Carlos Herrera has pointed out, the exact level at which the private life of the heads of state affects the lives of citizens with public consequences should be established. The private actions of the King Emeritus should be analysed from the perspective of legality rather than morality.

According to José Antonio Zarzalejos, the departure of Juan Carlos I is a sanctioning measure agreed between the Government and Felipe VI, will be for an indefinite period of time and will probably be definitive. For Elisa de la Nuez, once the patrimonial and fiscal wanderings of the King Emeritus had been discovered, the only possible solution was that he be removed from any institutional work and leave Spain. The serious political crisis that existed was caused by the lack of exemplarity of Juan Carlos I, so it was necessary to urgently restore the exemplary nature of the institution and differentiate the King Emeritus from his successor. He considered it fundamental to close the previous stage to all effects and to withdraw from the former monarch the honorary dignity of King that was recognized by the Royal Decree 470/2014.

I don't entirely agree with these assessments. Juan Carlos I has not gone into exile like his grandfather Alfonso XIII, but has left Spain for some time to give a margin to calm down and put things in place. It seems that Don Juan Carlos told his son that he was leaving so that he would be calm, and in his letter he expressed his desire to contribute to making it easier for him to carry out his duties, "from the calm and tranquility" that his high responsibility required. As Herrera has said, "if tomorrow the prosecutor concludes that he finds no reason to request his prosecution for matters revealed by a police officer on trial and a clever commissioner, Juan Carlos could return to his home, from which he has been kindly invited to leave. This is a kind of voluntary exile. 

As Jordi Canal has observed, the departure of the King Emeritus is neither an escape nor an exile, but a temporary removal from blinding spotlights. Juan Carlos I has taken a step to the side that his own son and the Royal House had been demanding. It is a preventive and exemplary measure that tries to stop the effects of some badly suffered echoes of the past. The monarchy of Philip VI cannot afford the luxury of being discredited on the basis of guilt from another time. The former monarch has offered a vital resignation so as not to continue harming his son's exemplary monarchy with his actions and his current discredited image.

I agree with de la Nuez that "if the Crown wants to survive, it must become a model institution that functions as a reference for all the others", but it is necessary to distinguish between the public and private actions of the monarch, and not to mix or confuse them. A head of state can lead a deplorable private life and perform an extraordinary public task and vice versa, have an impeccable private life and be a lousy ruler. The deplorable private life of Don Juan Carlos does not have to cloud the excellent performance of his political activity as head of state, which is recognised by everyone in Spain and beyond. 

According to Canal, we should not make the easy or malicious mistake of extending our conclusions or assessments about the Juan Carlos I of recent years to his entire reign. It is not possible to forget that the last quarter of the 20th century was an exceptional historical moment, in which a democratic, modern, stable and open to the world Spain was consolidated. The monarch and the parliamentary monarchy played a decisive role in this. Don Juan Carlos has been a great King in 20th century Spain, but he has not been able to find his place in the 21st century. History must prevail over memory and balanced and rigorous analysis of the past over the distorted view of presentiment. 

In the field of politics, Juan Carlos I has left the Spanish people a remarkable legacy, as he was one of the main architects - if not the main one - of the establishment of democracy in Spain, and this should not be forgotten if we are well born. Juan Manuel Burgos finds it very bad news that a personality who has played a central role in the history of Spain has to leave the country practically in secret, and this means that something is wrong. It is true that Don Juan Carlos' personal behaviour has been far from exemplary, he has done a lot of damage to the Crown, to Spain and to himself, and he is paying a high price for it. Nevertheless, the political role he played during his almost forty-year reign was crucial in managing the transition process, in reconciling the two Spains, in consolidating democracy and in establishing Spain among the nations of Europe. None of that counts, Burgos asked himself.

Already days before the real march, the former High Commissioner for the Marca España, Carlos Espinosa de los Monteros, vehemently denounced the injustice that was being committed with Don Juan Carlos, in an article in which he paraphrased Emile Zola's famous text "I accuse". In it he accused the government of Sánchez-Iglesias of serious disloyalty to the head of state over the last few years "with actions, statements, comments, absences and impersonation in which prevailed, along with disrespect, contempt for the role that corresponds to the Constitution". He also accused him of trying to lead Spain into a Republic by discrediting the Monarchy in any way, and of exerting pressure on all fronts to force it out of Spain, without any kind of accusation, as a necessary condition for continuing to tolerate the constitutional monarchy in the country. He also denounced the silence of the ex-Presidents of Government - with the honourable exception of Felipe González - and the politicians of the Transition, who have remained with their lips closed to so many grievances during this phase of the lynching, and he accused the businessmen - especially the beneficiaries of the consortium awarded the construction and operation of the AVE to Mecca - who have seen their companies and their businesses magnified "by the action and presence of the King, the great ambassador of Spain, an open market, always ready to help companies". The media have not been spared from criticism and, without any rigor or proof, have made special programs in which they have denied the King the presumption of innocence. He concluded his philippic Espinosa de los Monteros by blaming Pedro Sánchez and his government for "an ignoble conduct, lacking all objectivity, moderation and good judgment", aimed at "forcing the expulsion from his country of a citizen who has done so much since his youth in the service of Spain".

A different matter is the private life of the monarch, which could clearly be improved. His repeated extramarital affairs were a continuous affront to his wife, Doña Sofía, and his children, and in the case of Corina Larsen, he even provided her with a house near La Zarzuela and included her in the royal entourage on official trips. He has surrounded himself with, and allowed himself to be advised by, business friends of dubious conduct and has hidden from the Treasury the $100 million given to him by the King of Saudi Arabia, Abdullah bin Abdelaziz, but these behaviours - which fall within the scope of ethics and are morally reprehensible - are socially acceptable by a Spanish society that is extremely tolerant of the sexual and fiscal weaknesses of its leaders. It is therefore hypocritical to now rend one's garments for acts that were public and notorious in his glorious times, and were and are consented to and tolerated by the entourage of the Royal House, the politicians of the Government and the Opposition, and Spanish society in general.

As Maite Rico has pointed out, stones are raining down on Juan Carlos I, although he has asked for it, but the most exalted inquisitors -like Pablo Iglesias or Joaquim Torra- are the least suitable to stone anyone, as Jesus Christ showed in the parable of the adulteress. Iglesias has said -without changing his color- that public officials should watch over the exemplarity and cleanliness of the institutions, and that the escape of a corrupt king persecuted by justice was not good for the Spanish democracy. This has been pontificated with the greatest cynicism by a character who knowingly resorts to the most crude lies, given that the King Emeritus has not been charged by the justice system, neither in Switzerland nor in Spain, while he is for various crimes, and has in his closet many corpses of corruption of Iranian or Venezuelan origin.

The president of the Generalitat, in turn, has accused the central government of having facilitated the escape of a person under investigation for an immense case of corruption, which has created a very serious situation and compromised Spanish democracy. This is affirmed by another pathetic person who is, not already charged, but condemned for disobedience to several months of disqualification from performing public functions, who has his party prosecuted for the corrupt practices of the 3%, who is not a democrat and who does not consider himself to be Spanish. The Parliament has declared that "Catalonia is republican and, therefore, does not recognize nor wants to have any king", has asked for "the abolition of an outdated and antidemocratic institution like the Monarchy" and demanded the withdrawal of the title of King to Don Juan Carlos and his assertion before the Supreme Court. Torra has urged the Ministers of Podemos to resign if the Government does not organize a referendum on the Monarchy.

It is not possible to give the least credibility to accusations made by a despised commissioner and a corrupt and swindling policeman, who are accused by the justice system and who are allowed to resort to lies to ensure their defence. According to Benigno Pendás, Juan Carlos I is neither investigated nor charged, and has stated that he is at the disposal of justice, so he can go wherever he pleases. This has been confirmed by the Supreme Court when it rejected Omnium Cultural's demand for precautionary measures to prevent the "escape" of the King Emeritus, because the Spanish procedural system does not contemplate the adoption of this type of measure with respect to those who do not have the status of being investigated. 

In the opinion of Araceli Mangas, it is to be hoped that this is a temporary stay to breathe outside this toxic atmosphere created by those who are already accused or under investigation, and in the interest of their defence. "No judge or prosecutor, Spanish or Swiss, has accused or notified the King Emeritus as being under investigation". Only the Supreme Court Prosecutor's Office has initiated a general investigation into the acts carried out by Don Juan Carlos after June 2014, when he lost his inviolability following his abdication. However, without waiting for the results of the investigation, misleading legal opinions have been disseminated. If the monarch's departure has been made in agreement with the President of the Government, one cannot understand the outbursts of the Vice President of the Government describing his departure as a "flight", as if he were a fugitive with an arrest warrant. Who is lying," asks the UCM professor, "Sánchez or Iglesias? The first vice-president, Carmen Calvo, has replied to her colleague that the King Emeritus has not fled from anything because he is not involved in any cause.

The accusations against Juan Carlos I of charging commissions for the work on the AVE to Mecca have no legal basis or factual consistency. As Gonzalo Quintero has pointed out, commissions are the amounts charged for facilitating a certain business and are paid to the seller or the intermediary, but not to the buyer. It is absurd to think that the State that commissions a work pays commissions to the producers of these works or to their intermediaries. King Abdelaziz's donation to Juan Carlos I took place in 2008 and the contract for the construction of the AVE was awarded to a Spanish consortium in 2012, which makes it unlikely that - even in the hypothetical case that there would have been commissions - these would have been paid four years before the signing of the corresponding contract. The donation was a gift and not a commission, much less a crime. "The reasons that led the Saudi King to do so in no way affect the credit of the Spanish Government. 

Here one can speculate on such motives, which find an explanation in the close relations maintained by Don Juan Carlos with the Gulf monarchs, despite the autocratic and retrograde nature of their regimes, and his support for them, especially at the times when the "Arab spring" brought them to light. This intimate relationship reached its climax with the concession to the Saudi Arabian sovereign of the Golden Fleece, Spain's highest decoration. The Arabs are usually grateful and generous, so it is not surprising that a billionaire monarch offered a gift of £64.8 million to his "brother" the Spanish King, as the King of Bahrain, Hamad al-Khalifa, gave him £1.7 million or the Sheikh of Dubai, Mohammed bin Rashid, gave him two Ferraris worth £700,000.  

According to Quintero, Juan Carlos could have committed at most a tax offence by not declaring the Saudi donation to the Spanish Treasury, but this alleged offence would have been time-barred. Nor could money laundering have occurred because, for this crime to be committed, the money must have come from criminal activity. On the other hand, the supposed donation of the King Emeritus of EUR 64.8 million to Corina Larsen has been a phenomenal absurdity, but neither can it be considered a crime, although it would be largely illegal, because no one can receive more by donation than they could receive by inheritance, and Don Juan Carlos could only donate sums of the free third of his estate.

Podemites and separatists have openly manifested their intention to overthrow the Spanish Monarchy and to establish the Third Republic. For this reason, they have taken advantage of the blunders of the King Emeritus to attack the monarchical institution that he has led with dignity for forty years. They have no special interest in attacking him - considering him amortized and sufficiently discredited - but they have started with him for being the weakest link in the royal chain in the process of dismantling the Transition, but their objective is Philip VI. According to Jaime Carvajal, the commissioners of the historical memory are those who today strive to deny or ignore the decisive contribution of the now King Emeritus to the establishment of democracy in Spain, in an attempt to delegitimize the institution of the Monarchy and precipitate a change of regime In a new act of institutional disloyalty as a party in government, We can ally ourselves with the nationalist parties - who aspire to independence from Spain - to use the allegedly irregular acts of the monarch in their eagerness to discredit the Crown and force a referendum on the form of state. They ask the son to abdicate for the sins of his father, but -according to a Metroscopy poll- 80% of the Spaniards surveyed have considered that the errors and faults are of the people who commit them and not of their descendants or of the institutions they represent, and 87% that the acts attributed to Don Juan Carlos have only damaged his personal image. 

José Álvarez Junco has asked himself what need Juan Carlos I had to make the series of mistakes that led him to this unfortunate end. He demonstrated the usefulness of the monarchy and won over many of his fellow citizens - especially after 23-F - who became, if not monarchists, "Juancarlistas". He became confident with the acquisition of acquired prestige and, instead of maintaining the prudence that had guided him while he felt weak, he lowered his guard believing himself to be strong and committed error after error. It was a pity because Spain needed neutral and prestigious institutions, and the monarchy was one of the few respected, not for itself, but for its incumbent. It is unforgivable that he himself should have damaged that prestige. A king does not have a private life and exemplarity, expected in any public office, is doubly demanded of him. Nobody around him warned him that he was mortal or he did not want to hear it if they did, and it has shattered his image internally and internationally. The historian is especially interested in the need for him to accumulate so much money.

I believe that here is one of the keys which, if not justified, at least explains his greedy behaviour: the economic precariousness he suffered in his childhood. In his book on "The King", José Luis de Vilallonga alludes on several occasions to the constant concern for money that he observed in his family during his childhood. Indeed, the Emeritus King seems to have lost his insecurity due to the economic uncertainty in which he grew up. When I arrived in Portugal in 1975, I went to pay my respects to Don Juan de Borbón in Estoril and was surprised by the modesty in which the family lived and their financial dependence on faithful friends. This fear seems to have weighed heavily on the monarch's actions.

According to Pendás, the Republicans have a serious problem, which is that they do not agree on the type of Republic they want to impose: a unitary, federal, confederal, plurinational, popular or "Cartagena" Republic? The question of the Monarchy-Republic antinomy has been overcome, since what is important is not the form of the State, but the type of government that is established, so that it favors the maximum possible of democracy. As Alvarez Junco has pointed out, it is not a question of being a monarchist or a republican, but of being a democrat, and of establishing and consolidating a regime of coexistence in freedom, "It is not easy for the Republic to guarantee a president who has better traits of supra-partisan impartiality, preparation and professionalism than Philip VI". For Alvaro Vargas-Llosa, the monarchy is an institution that cannot be separated from the liberal democratic system, which is indispensable to avoid civil chaos or reactionary dictatorship, and the monarchical regime established in the 1978 Constitution is a solid guarantee for liberal democracy.

In Juan José Solozábal's opinion, the vicissitudes of the King Emeritus, which are certainly regrettable, should in no way affect the justified titles of the monarchical institution in our constitutional system. The contribution of the monarch has been fundamental to the structuring and integration of our constitutional political system, since he is a neutral body that fulfils a function of relationship between the different public branches. His intervention in the fulfillment of the tasks of the State reinforced the unity and impartiality of the State, reduced the partisanship of the bodies it complements, and reinforced the impartiality of the jurisdiction that is administered on its behalf. "A country of the constitutive variety of ours is well served by the element of integration that is the monarch, a symbol of the unity and permanence of the State", presenting itself as the exclusive champion of the cause, and the Government must close ranks in defence of the constitutional framework of the monarchy and radically obstruct the passage of changes in the institution that, at present, have an eroding scope.

The Republican ardor of the President of the Government has played a dirty trick on him. For a long time he has been sending subliminal messages against the Monarchy and in favour of the Republic, he has allowed Iglesias to question the monarchical form of the State from within the Government, and he has not come out in defence of the King as he should have done. Now - boosted by the demands of the EU, whose economic assistance is indispensable for lifting the country - he has asserted - perhaps too late - the government's full respect for the constitutional pact at the top of which is the parliamentary monarchy, and warned of the inconvenience of trying to extend alleged personal responsibilities to the institutions, although he continues to tolerate the anti-monarchist insults of his vice-president. He has even felt obliged to send a letter to his militants to defend the Monarchy and demand their accountability, in the face of the anti-monarchist rampage of some of its leaders, such as the mayor of Gijón.  

According to José Juan Toharia, the Crown, as an institution, has suffered a very slight deterioration with the issue of the royal march. Don Juan Carlos is now King Emeritus, the Crown is held by Philip VI and his public image arouses the same high levels of public approval that his father once received. I am not so optimistic and I believe that the monarchical institution has been seriously affected and efforts must be made to stop its decline. As Canal has observed, the Monarchy incarnated by Philip VI needs to turn the page as soon as possible, in order to demonstrate its exemplary nature and usefulness in facing a future in which the stability and unity that the Crown assures will be indispensable. Among other things, greater transparency is indispensable. As Carmen Enríquez has observed, Don Juan Carlos continues to be King - even if only in an honorary capacity - and Spanish citizens have the right to know where he is, the reasons for his departure and the future that awaits him. In Carvajal's view, the hope is that the democratic institutions that King Emeritus helped so much to consolidate can rise to the current institutional challenge. "In the hands of Philip VI, who has made transparency and exemplarity his hallmark, there is reason to be confident that the Monarchy will overcome this crisis and continue to provide the stability the country needs to weather this critical moment.

According to José Núñez Xeisas, there have been two phases in the history of Juan Carlos I and he has asked himself which of them will prevail, whether that of 23-F or that of the Botswana hunt.I am confident that history will put each character in his place and recognize the extraordinary contribution of the King Emeritus to the establishment and defense of democracy in Spain, despite his many mistakes, which he himself has acknowledged by humbly confessing "I have been wrong. It will not happen again", and by abdicating and resigning from the Head of State. The bad thing is that they did happen again. To each his own.