Few things annoy the government of Pedro Sánchez and the Spanish royal house as much as knowing that the King Emeritus Juan Carlos I de Borbón, based in the UAE since 2020, plans to visit Spain.
And that’s what seems to be happening this Wednesday. It would be his second visit since he lived outside Spain and, this time, there would have been no private meeting with his son, the current monarch Felipe VYO.
Like a year ago, the emeritus doesn’t want to miss the regattas in Sanxenxo, the Galician Rias Baixas municipality that awaits him with open arms.
This was said by the mayor of Sanxenxo, Telmo Martín, who considers King Juan Carlos an excellent ambassador to promote his city.
“We hope his physical condition will allow him to contract,” he added.
El Bourbon, who has already turned 85, would come to Spain for train for the world championship to be held in the English Isle of Wight at the end of August.
This weekend the regatta for the Spanish Cup will be held in Sanxenxo and Juan Carlos will be at the helm of the sailboat christened with a name that, in some way, alludes to its troubled past: the Bribón, a ship with which last year the rey the emeritus finished fourth.
In Spain, Juan Carlos I was investigated for alleged tax evasion and apparent opaque financial management, but the Spanish Justice filed these cases: possible crimes prescribed or could not be investigated because, until his abdication in 2014, the emeritus king enjoyed immunity.
Meeting with Charles III?
For days in Spain there were rumors that London could be the first stop on his journey from Abu Dhabi.
There was talk of a lunch alone with King Carlos IIIweeks before his coronation, also a relative of Bourbon.
Juan Carlos and Isabel II, the queen who died in September last year and left the British throne to Carlos III, were great-grandchildren of Queen Victoria of England.
And, on the other hand, the mother of Philip of Edinburgh, who was the husband of Queen Elizabeth II, was a first cousin of the grandmother of Juan Carlos I, Queen Victoria Eugenie.
Despite being related, Buckingham Palace has not confirmed whether Carlos III will receive Juan Carlos.
And the Spanish embassy in London has also distanced itself from the possible visit: “It would be a private trip and, therefore, does not fall within the remit of the diplomatic office”, they assured.
This Tuesday, however, the Daily mail published photos of Juan Carlos, taken on Monday evening, leaving the exclusive Oswald club in London.
There, in Mayfair, a king emeritus in a blue suit and pink tie dined with friends.
His stay in London would also coincide with his desire to be this Tuesday, at nine in the evening, in the Stamford Bridge box to watch the Champions League quarter-final match between Chelsea and Real Madrid.
Furthermore, it is not known precisely where he will stay when I land in Spain. If he will again be a guest in Sanxenxo of his friend and president of the Yacht Club, Pedro Campos.
Three years out of Spain
After starring in a few scandalous episodessuch as the killing of elephants on a private safari in Botswana that he shared with Corinna Larsen, one of his passions, Juan Carlos I left the throne of Spain to his son, Felipe VI.
Since then, the investigation into alleged tax fraud, Corinna’s statements and denunciations have made her presence at the Palacio de la Zarzuela unbearable.
For this reason, and after a long negotiation, the king who was consecrated by Francisco Franco to rule Spain when he died, which Juan Carlos did for almost the next forty years -between 1975 and 2014-, agreed to leave the kingdom.
In August 2020 he settled in Abu Dhabi, where he received pampering and privileges from sheiks and emirs.
The latest is the private jet of Emir Mohamed bin Zayed with which Juan Carlos will land at Vigo airport.
Bourbon should arrive in Galicia this Wednesday, around eight in the evening.
No remorse, no low profile
Juan Carlos doesn’t seem to face his ostracism with any kind of low-key remorse or willingness. And whenever he can, he joins the international agenda of the European monarchy.
He attended the funeral of Elizabeth II, in London, in September 2022 and, in January of this year, he was in Athens, during the burial of the last king of Greece and brother of Queen Sofia, Constantine. Also, in February, he traveled to Paris to attend the ceremony where Nobel Prize winner Mario Vargas Llosa was made a member of the French Academy.
And although at the end of last year he managed to get the United Kingdom to recognize its immunity from the harassment lawsuit that Corinna filed in the London courts, the emeritus king seems destined not to give peace to the Spanish Crown.
A few days ago it emerged that a British NGO would have received a donation of one million dollars from a close friend of Juan Carlos who recently passed away, the historian Joaquín Romero Maura, and that this money would come from a fund linked to the emeritus king in a tax haven on the canal from La Mancha.
political tension
One month before the Spanish municipal and regional elections, the visit of Juan Carlos I adds hardness. Impossible for the Spaniards not to comment on the emeritus’ imminent arrival, but his more intimate environment prevents his days in Galicia from becoming the media spectacle that was his visit last year.
The Spaniards are still waiting for a word from their most charismatic king, that of the Transition, the one who was able to keep the helm of the country when in February 1981 the lieutenant colonel Antonio Tejero attempted the coup.
But Juan Carlos feigns dementia. Last year, in Sanxenxo, when the press asked him if he intended to give explanations, from the passenger seat of the car that was transporting him, he rolled down the window and replied: “Explanations for what?”
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Source: Clarin
Mary Ortiz is a seasoned journalist with a passion for world events. As a writer for News Rebeat, she brings a fresh perspective to the latest global happenings and provides in-depth coverage that offers a deeper understanding of the world around us.