The Government spokesperson, on Juan Carlos I: "He has lost an opportunity to explain and ask for forgiveness"

The Casa del Rey is not the only institution concerned about the conduct of Juan Carlos I on his return trip to Spain two years after he expatriated in the United Arab Emirates.

Felipe VI meets this Monday with the king emeritus in a climate of discomfort that transcends La Zarzuela, before Juan Carlos I leaves again for Abu Dhabi.

The Government believes that the former head of state "has missed an opportunity, which the Spaniards expected, to give explanations and ask for forgiveness", according to the Minister of Territorial Policy and spokesperson for the Executive, Isabel Rodríguez.

"Explanations of what?" Said the emeritus king this Sunday in Sanxenxo (Pontevedra).

The Prosecutor's Office of the Supreme Court filed the investigation into Juan Carlos I in March despite verifying numerous fiscal irregularities.

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Isabel Rodríguez: "King Juan Carlos has missed an opportunity to give explanations"

The Government spokeswoman, Isabel Rodríguez, during her visit to Cuenca.Photo: EUROPA PRESS / LOLA PINEDA |

Video: RNE

The king emeritus has arrived at ten o'clock this Monday morning for a family meeting with his son.

A large group of admirers with Spanish flags and numerous media outlets, especially television cameras, who Juan Carlos I greeted from inside the vehicle, gathered at the entrances to the Palacio de la Zarzuela at that time.

“Without a doubt, he has lost the opportunity that Spanish society deserves, but also democracy.

I think I should have taken advantage of this visit, this presence in our country, to account for those actions that we have known and are not compatible with the exemplary nature and transparency that is required of an institution such as the Casa del Rey”, has affected, very critical , the Minister of Territorial Policy in an interview granted to RNE this Monday.

Rodríguez has stressed that Juan Carlos I should have been "more careful" on his return to Spain.

Contrary to the wishes of La Zarzuela, the four days that Felipe VI's father has spent in Sanxenxo have been neither austere nor discreet.

The monarch has had extensive media coverage during his stay in the town of Pontevedra, where he has spent the night at the house of Pedro Campos, president of the Nautical Club,

and received an award during the regattas this weekend in the 6mR class.

Transparency and exemplary

The Government, which always takes care of all the statements that have to do with the House of the King, has worked in recent days to separate the current head of state from his father.

"Fortunately, King Felipe VI is making a formidable effort to recover that essence that he must take precedence in a State institution, which is transparency and exemplary", Rodríguez affirmed.

"The one who is not doing it is his father Juan Carlos I", remarked the spokeswoman for La Moncloa, who has framed the meeting of the emeritus with his family in La Zarzuela to the "private sphere".

The spokeswoman for the Executive has come to highlight the "unequivocal signs of progress in transparency and exemplary character" made during the reign of Felipe VI, in accordance with "what a 21st century monarchy must be".

By contrast,

Juan Carlos I's attitude "undoubtedly damages", according to the Government, the image that was carved out among Spaniards "who believed in his work" and "valued him during the complicated times of [the] Transition, modernity and democracy".

"They are Spaniards who believed in him and have been defrauded by unethical and exemplary acts," Rodríguez riveted.

While the PSOE takes special care not to question the State model, the minority partner has once again defended the Republic as an alternative to the parliamentary monarchy.

“The problem is not that the king emeritus makes jokes about the explanations that he has or does not have to give.

The problem is that he can do it because he enjoys impunity and anyone in office can do it again.

The republican horizon is the only way out”, said Ione Belarra, general secretary of Podemos and minister of Social Rights.

The Minister of Consumption and federal coordinator of IU, Alberto Garzón, has also highlighted that what "embarrasses" and "embarrasses" Juan Carlos I's return to Spain is his "impunity" derived from his "inviolability" until his abdication in 2014 The Prosecutor's Office concluded that some of the cases against the emeritus had prescribed or were not prosecutable because they had been committed before his abdication: until then Juan Carlos I was shielded by article 56.3 of the Constitution, which establishes that "the person of the King it is inviolable and not subject to liability.”

The modification of the Basic Law to end the inviolability of the head of state is not an option for the socialist part of the Government, at least at the moment.

“Any reform to modernize our country and advance democracy is positive, but you have to be realistic with your expectations.

A reform of this depth would need the main opposition party”, Rodríguez observed.

The president of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, assured on Sunday that it makes no sense to question that "a citizen who has no pending case [with the Justice] and has been king of Spain for decades visits his country."

In his opinion, those who criticize him seek to "question the Head of State and the Constitution."