Sánchez refers to the Casa del Rey the responsibility of reporting the whereabouts of Juan Carlos I

"We are different institutions", has emphasized the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, about the Executive branch and the House of the King in the midst of a crisis derived from the departure from Spain of Juan Carlos I. In a brief appearance after meeting with Felipe VI at the Traditional summer meeting at the Marivent Palace, Sánchez has claimed this Wednesday that since they are two different institutions, it corresponds to the Casa del Rey and the King Emeritus himself the responsibility of reporting his whereabouts, which is still unknown a week after transcending who has left the country. The Chief Executive has also stressed that Spain needs "institutional stability" at an "extraordinarily complex" time due to the health and economic emergency derived from the coronavirus pandemic, and has limited himself to expressing his respect for justice after the imputation of his Government partner, Podemos, for alleged irregular financing.

The meeting between Pedro Sánchez and Felipe VI this Wednesday in Palma was the first that both had officially held since it was learned that Juan Carlos I had left Spain after the investigation for his alleged illegal conduct. Eight days later, the whereabouts of the King Emeritus are still unknown, and the Government and the House of the King are silent about his fate. In his first appearance after the news of the departure of Juan Carlos I, last week, the president assured that he did not have the information of his whereabouts, and this Wednesday he has chosen to derive the responsibility of offering that information to the Casa del Rey and the King emeritus himself. “The conversations and dispatches that I have with the Head of State remain in due confidentiality. We are different institutions. One thing is the executive power and another thing is the Head of State, the Royal House. Those issues that have to be communicated related to the matter that you have referred must be the Royal House or the person affected and not the executive power, ”Sánchez said, avoiding mentioning Juan Carlos I.

The refusal to reveal where the King's father is has sparked a race to locate him and he has been located in Portugal, the Dominican Republic, the United Arab Emirates and even New Zealand. The Casa del Rey also does not report his whereabouts because it maintains that Juan Carlos I is a private citizen and that he will reveal where he is when he deems it appropriate, if he considers it necessary. However, Juan Carlos I retains the honorary title of King of Spain, travels with a diplomatic passport, is part of the royal family, is registered in the Supreme Court and has not renounced his dynastic rights.

The president has wanted to reduce the importance of his meeting with King Felipe to an "ordinary" office in which, as he explained, they have not dealt with the crisis derived from the departure of the King Emeritus. Sánchez did frame the meeting in a very delicate context due to the health emergency and wanted to convey a message to the Spanish public that he already insisted on last week: that in these times of anxiety, Spain needs stability and strong institutions, including the Monarchy, although without citing it. "The more adverse the situation, which is extraordinarily complex derived from the pandemic, the more important is the normal functioning of public institutions," he remarked.

Sánchez has also tiptoed through another delicate matter that has occupied a large part of the journalists' questions in his brief appearance, the imputation of Podemos as a legal person for alleged irregular financing after the complaint of a former party worker. The president of has limited himself to expressing his "maximum respect for the independence of the judges" and their work within the framework of a social and democratical state of law, at the insistence of informants. Pablo Iglesias' party is trying to stop the case in the National Court and accuses the judge of opening a "general cause", while the opposition pressures for the second vice president to resign or give explanations in Congress.

The head of the Executive has offered, on the other hand, an "outstretched hand" to the City Councils to continue negotiating the plan so that they can use their remaining Treasury in the fight against the pandemic. The mayors of the main Spanish cities have rebelled against the government decree that establishes a plan so that they can use 5,000 million of the municipal surplus, and the Executive faces a probable parliamentary defeat. Sánchez recalled that the origin of the dispute is the PP's Budget Stability Law that prevents the City Councils from using its remnants, and has promised to continue talking with the City Councils to find a solution that satisfies them, but has not hidden their discomfort by a fire caused when trying to improve a problem derived from the current law. “What the Government does is enable a mechanism within the law so that the municipalities can make use of that remnant. From the freezing of the figures by the previous Administration, to the use of 5,000 million of those remnants, there is an abyss ”, he complained.