08/03/2020 - 15:32
- Clarín.com
- World
The abdication of King Juan Carlos I in June 2014 put the finishing touch to 39 years of reign and marked a turning point in his figure, which led first to his withdrawal from public life a year ago and, now, in his departure from Spain, announced this Monday, before the discredit caused by its alleged hidden businesses in Switzerland.
Key figure for Spanish democracy , the former head of state came to be questioned by the Government and by a part of the Spanish political class, waiting for whether the prosecutors of the Supreme Court decide whether or not there are reasons to open a criminal case for alleged crimes committed when he ceased to be inviolable by giving the throne to his son Felipe VI.
Since his abdication, the 82-year-old king emeritus has played a leading role in official acts that led to his decision to end his institutional work in June last year with a letter sent to Felipe VI.
"The time has come to turn a new page in my life and to complete my withdrawal from public life," the emeritus king told him.
A decision matured since he turned 80 and after the tribute paid to him in Congress on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the 1978 Constitution.
That was the last great act in which King Juan Carlos participated, after a year earlier he had aired his discomfort at not having been invited to the commemoration of the first democratic elections in Spain after the Franco dictatorship (1977).
"A democracy that my father promoted in such a decisive and decisive way," Felipe VI praised in 2018, before a Congress that, for the most part, paid a long ovation to Juan Carlos I.
Months earlier, on his 80th anniversary, his son also thanked him for "so many years of loyal service to Spain".
In between, suspicions of shady deals began to emerge when the recording of a conversation in which the German Corinna Larsen, who was a close friend of the King Emeritus, attributed accounts in Switzerland and accused him of using her as a figurehead, became known.
It was the spigot of a wealth of information that led Felipe VI to distance himself from his father by renouncing his inheritance and withdrawing the State's remuneration last March, although keeping him as a member of the royal family with the consideration of king.
A year and two months later, the gap has widened with the decision of the King Emeritus to leave Spain "guided by the conviction of providing the best service to the Spanish, their institutions" and his own son, announced this Monday.
The estrangement with her son has also been reflected in their appearances together , which have been limited to some family encounter, the last one being the funeral for her older sister, Pilar de Borbón, in January of this year.
Since his abdication, King Juan Carlos has lavished more on his private life than on his public life, taking refuge above all in his friends and in hobbies such as gastronomy, bullfighting and, especially, sailing .
On several occasions he has enjoyed soccer in the stadiums of Real Madrid and Atlético de Madrid, and tennis, cheering on his friend Rafa Nadal.
He has also retained a fondness for Formula 1, although, when he was at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix in November 2018, his greeting to the Saudi Crown Prince, Mohamed bin Salman , became a headache , involved in the controversy at the time by suspicions about him in the murder of the journalist from his country Jamal Khashoggi.
With physical mobility increasingly affected, the former head of state returned to the operating room in August 2019 to undergo a delicate heart procedure that was successfully carried out. He was last seen on June 16, when he went to a Madrid clinic to undergo a medical check-up.
Source: EFE