King Felipe VI makes his assets public: 2.5 million euros

King Felipe VI at the Zarzuela Palace, on April 21. Javier Lizon (EFE)

The heritage of King Felipe VI amounts to 2,573,392.80 euros, as reported by the Royal House on Monday.

His assets are made up of 2,267,942.80 euros in "deposits in checking or savings accounts and securities representing the participation in the equity of any entity" and another 305,450 euros in "art objects, antiques and personal jewelry" that have been appraised.

The decision to make public the assets of the Head of State, which is unprecedented in Spain, has been taken by the Monarch himself as a sign of the "transparency and exemplary nature" that must govern the actions of public servants and with the aim of "reinforcing confidence” of citizens in the Crown, according to sources from La Zarzuela.

The King has done nothing more than apply the provisions of the transparency and high office laws, of 2013 and 2015, respectively, from which the Head of State is expressly excluded, although nothing prevents him from submitting to them voluntarily.

In fact, the senior officials of the House of the King, excluding the Royal Family, had already been publishing their declaration of assets, despite not being legally obliged to do so.

Felipe VI's assets come from the remuneration he has received from the Budgets of the King's House over the last 25 years, since 1998;

first as Prince of Asturias and then, since 2014, as King.

The gross amount that he has received in this quarter of a century amounts to 4,275,796.94 euros.

Once the payment of Personal Income Tax and Wealth Tax has been deducted, which the King completes each year assisted by the Madrid Special Delegation of the Tax Agency, Felipe VI allocates his income to savings and personal expenses, such as the cost of the boarding school in Wales where The Princess of Asturias is studying the international baccalaureate.

More information

The Princess of Asturias, from the 'college' of Wales to the institute of Leganés

The Monarch does not have real estate of his own or assets abroad, according to sources from the Casa del Rey, who assure that it is not planned to make Doña Letizia's assets public, since the decision is limited to the head of the Headquarters of the State, despite the fact that the Queen receives an allocation from the State budget.

The 2.6 million that Felipe VI has in bank deposits are mostly in investment funds that are managed by the entities themselves without Felipe VI intervening in any way in financial decisions, the same sources specify.

Although the Royal House had been studying for a long time the moment to make Felipe VI's heritage public, the Zarzuela has disassociated this measure from the scandal caused by Juan Carlos I's business abroad and has stressed that it is "a decision based on the convictions of the King and it is not opportunistic or circumstantial”.

The truth is that the publication of the heritage has occurred after the Prosecutor's Office has filed the investigations into the fortune of the king emeritus, which allows Felipe VI to turn the page on the past and start a new stage with the aim of recovering the credit of the monarchy.

Sources from the Casa del Rey register the measure in "the process of reform, renovation and modernization of the Crown, which does not end with this decision, since the adaptation is constant".

Despite this, the same sources rule out that new renovation measures will be taken in the medium term, although the Council of Ministers plans to approve a royal decree on Tuesday that modifies the structure, organization and operation of the Casa del Rey.

What the Government has already ruled out is the approval of a Crown Law, which would address a possible cut in the immunity of the head of state, and has left the modernization of the Monarchy in the hands of Zarzuela.

The publication of the personal patrimony of the King was the easiest measure to tackle, since it does not require any legal or normative change and the personal decision of the Monarch is enough.

The Casa del Rey does not plan for Felipe VI to periodically update his declaration of assets, although he does not rule out doing so in the future, especially if it undergoes significant changes.

The decision to publish the assets of Felipe VI has been "known and shared" with the Government and the Popular Party, according to the same sources, and "communicated" to the other parliamentary groups, with the exception of ERC, Junts per Cat, Bildu , the CUP and the BNG.

The Casa del Rey justifies its exclusion by referring to statements made at the time by the then Vice President Carmen Calvo, who limited the negotiation on the reform of the Monarchy to the parties that "participate in the consensus of the Constitution of 78".

The heritage of other European monarchs

Buckingham Palace has never revealed the personal assets of Elizabeth II, which has been the subject of more or less rigorous calculations and estimates by different media.

The newspaper

recently pointed to an amount close to 500 million euros.

Magazine

spoke in 2011 of about 386 million.

Bloomberg, four years later, placed the figure at around 504 million euros.

All these amounts include properties such as Balmoral Castle in Scotland or Sandringham Palace in England.

The queen also owns extensive estates in London and across the country that generate considerable agricultural and urban income.

It is the so-called Crown Estate (Real Property of the Crown), which for decades has been managed by the British State, but a large part of its profits are used for the expenses of the royal house.

As a budget allocation (the so-called Sovereign Fund), the monarchy of the United Kingdom received in the period 2020-21 from the Government about 102 million euros.

It was a slightly higher amount than in previous years,

because it covered the renovation works of Buckingham Palace, which will last for a decade.

Inform

In Belgium the patrimony of King Felipe is not known, since it has never been made public.

Yes, the annual allocation of the public budget has been disclosed, around 13 million.

The monarch who recently bought a vacation home on the Isle of Yeu, on the French Atlantic coast, according to the Belgian press.

Philip came to the throne in 2013 after the abdication of his father, Albert II.

The latter did disclose his assets in 2001, about 12.5 million, and he did so in response to the publication in various media outlets that his wealth could amount to between 250 million and 625 million.

Reports

In the Netherlands, King William of Orange's personal wealth is difficult to estimate as the Government Information Service does not publish what it considers to be private, and much of that wealth consists of works of art, jewellery, houses and other possessions. , in addition to money.

In 2021, the Dutch magazine

, which presents an annual list of the 500 richest people in the Netherlands - similar to that made by Forbes on an international scale - estimated that the royal family "had about 1.2 billion euros".

The official annual allocation for the monarch corresponding to 2022 amounts to 6.1 million euros.

Of these, 5.1 million correspond to material and personnel expenses.

In 2012 the sovereign acquired a summer villa in Greece for which he paid 4.5 million euros, according to the Dutch media.

He also has a Wajer 55 model yacht, valued at two million euros.

He also owns several pieces of land in the national territory: up to 377, also according to estimates from the national press.

Among them is the De Horsten estate, most of whose land was donated to him in 2017 by his mother, Beatriz.

She reigned between 1980 and 2013 and today she has the title of princess.

De Horsten has been in the hands of the House of Orange since 1845 and has more than 400 hectares.

They did not have to pay taxes for the operation, since the Constitution exempts them from the tax on inheritance and donations.

reports .