Felipe VI meets with the king emeritus to meet in Madrid after a telephone conversation in Abu Dhabi

Felipe VI has spoken by telephone this afternoon with his father, Juan Carlos I, with whom he has arranged to meet in Madrid when he comes to Spain, as reported by the Casa del Rey.

No date has been given for the king emeritus's trip and, therefore, neither when will the meeting be, although it is expected to be before the summer.

The conversation took place during the King's lightning trip this Sunday to Abu Dhabi, where he went to convey his condolences to Sheikh Mohamed Bin Zayed, the new president of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and emir of Abu Dhabi after the death of his half brother, Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed al Nahyan.

The telephone conversation took place at the end of the funeral and just before Don Felipe returned to Spain, this afternoon, according to La Zarzuela.

Juan Carlos de Borbón has lived in Abu Dhabi since August 2020, as the guest of Mohamed Bin Zayed, who for several years had already been a strong man in the country after the stroke suffered by his half-brother in 2014. When announcing the visit this morning from Don Felipe to Abu Dhabi, sources from the Casa del Rey had warned that it was difficult for father and son to coincide because the protocol of these acts is very strict.

La Zarzuela specifies that the call took place after the ceremony, and that in it father and son "have agreed to meet in Madrid".

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The Spanish monarch traveled this morning accompanied by the Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation, Luis Manuel Cuesta.

At the ceremony, Felipe VI conveyed his regret to Sheikh Mohamed Bin Zayed, appointed on Saturday as the new president of the United Arab Emirates after serving for almost a decade as the de facto leader.

Bin Zayed has also received the title of emir of Abu Dhabi for being the crown prince.

Felipe VI has attended similar ceremonies, such as those held in Oman after the death of Qaboos Bin Said in January 2020, or in Saudi Arabia, after the death of Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, in 2015. He was unable to attend the funeral in September 2020 by Sheikh Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah, Emir of Kuwait, due to the pandemic.

At the beginning of February, the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, already traveled to Abu Dhabi, but no contact with the King Emeritus was planned either.

At that time, the Supreme Court Prosecutor's Office had not made any decision on the open investigations into Juan Carlos I, which were shelved at the beginning of March despite verifying numerous fiscal irregularities because the facts had prescribed or were not prosecutable when enjoying the previous head of the state of immunity until his abdication in 2014.

Once the three proceedings opened in Spain were closed, and after the Swiss justice archived in December the investigation that had been initiated in that country in 2018 for the alleged collection of commissions in the works of the AVE to Mecca, the king emeritus only has opened a civil procedure in the United Kingdom after his ex-lover Corinna Larsen sued him for the alleged harassment that he claims he suffered since 2012 by agents of the National Intelligence Center (CNI) and that, according to his complaint, they acted by order of Juan Carlos de Borbón.

On March 29, the British judge in charge of the case ordered that the trial against the emeritus king go ahead.

There is not scheduled to be a new hearing until July 1.

At the beginning of March, and after the filing of the proceedings in Spain, Juan Carlos I announced with a letter addressed to his son that he intended to stay and live in Abu Dhabi and that he would visit Spain frequently.

On April 15, he transcended the visit of his daughters, the infantas Elena and Cristina, and their children, thanks to the dissemination of an undated image.