Juan Carlos I has spent five days in Spain surrounded by great media expectation, after 654 days living in Abu Dhabi, where he returned on the same private plane in which he landed last Thursday at the Peinador airport in Vigo.
A trip full of unknowns such as, for example, the payer of that flight, which was followed by thousands of people through a specialized website.
Sources close to the King Emeritus point out that the ship was offered by the Sheikh Emir of Abu Dhabi, Mohamed bin Zayed, to give Juan Carlos I freedom of movement.
The size of the special device for this return has not been specified either.
Neither the Casa del Rey, nor the Government Delegation in Galicia, nor the City Council of Sanxenxo (Pontevedra), where he stayed, have given details, they only indicate that his increase over the usual was minimal.
In safety,
the four usual agents became eight.
Another question is the benefit that the Real Náutico de Sanxenxo and the City Council of the town of Pontevedra have obtained from the media campaign.
For this reason, both estates have already commissioned the multinational projection measurement company Kantar to calculate them.
As a former head of the Crown, the King Emeritus has a security device in Abu Dhabi charged to the State Budget.
These are four escorts (civil guards or agents of the National Police Corps), whose salaries are paid by the Ministry of the Interior, although the allowances for their displacement abroad are paid by the Casa del Rey.
In addition, the former head of state has the support of three personal assistants who take turns serving him at his residence in Abu Dhabi, whose remuneration is covered by National Heritage.
The Embassy of Spain in the United Arab Emirates (USA) is in charge of providing support by processing the visas of the personnel in the service of Juan Carlos I, including that of the escorts to carry weapons,
although the Emirati authorities have never raised any problems in this regard as the king emeritus was a personal guest of Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed (MBZ), the country's new president and strong man for years.
Although the cost of the support provided to the King Emeritus from Madrid has never been revealed, the sources consulted put it at around 50,000 euros per month.
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The emeritus king returns to Abu Dhabi after a long talk with Felipe VI and without giving explanations
For this trip and after the initial forecasts were overwhelmed, the Casa del Rey doubled the agents sent to Sanxenxo to take care of the security of Juan Carlos I. A person from the La Zarzuela communication team was also in that Galician town.
The Government Delegation in Galicia has only indicated that since it was a private and unofficial activity of a member of the Casa del Rey, the device was paid for by the teams of that institution.
However, the visit of his son, King Felipe VI, to Vigo for an official act this Tuesday will have the usual coverage.
The Sanxenxo City Council assures that the local police force has not increased at all, which is normally reinforced from June 1 for the summer season of this important tourist town in the Rías Baixas.
Sources involved in that operation point out that there were no more Civil Guard crews than those already existing, neither by land, nor by sea or by air.
The organizers of the event even raised the possibility of having a special car to transfer the king emeritus from the Vigo airport to Sanxenxo with the windows tinted and it was rejected.
He traveled in the private car of the president of the Nautical Club, Pedro Campos, who sheltered him in his private home, with an escort in a vehicle that was behind him.
In fact, the monarch stopped on some occasion along the way to get some
selfie
with cyclists who recognized him at sporadic stops due to traffic.
Only in the access alley to the Campos home, already in a parish at the entrance to Sanxenxo, were some security fences put up, which normally do not exist, and a security agent was stationed.
The City Council and the Real Club Náutico de Sanxenxo have already commissioned the multinational company Kantar to measure the projection that Juan Carlos I's presence in the regattas could have had in the town. The competition began on Friday and ended this Sunday, and for the coverage of it and the participation of the emeritus king were accredited by 200 media representatives, many of them foreigners.
Juan Carlos I came to comment, in a joking tone when he observed the media deployment, that there had not been so many, not even at his wedding in Greece with Doña Sofía, the queen emeritus.
El Náutico only had to reinforce its internet service with three high-capacity lines and prepare a room for a hundred journalists.
The king emeritus wanted to use this test to check his physical condition, after almost three years without sailing, after undergoing heart surgery in the summer of 2019. It was his great concern, according to several of the crewmates who sailed these days with him .
In the farewell, first thing on Monday in Vigo, he told Campos himself, a sailor with several titles, that he intends to be back in Sanxenxo for the 6mR class world championship, whose title he has held since he won it in 2019 in Finland , but also told him that he is worried about his fitness.
He also confirmed in that conversation that he wants to return for those dates if nothing unusual happens.
The interest aroused these days in Sanxenxo has also been noted in the high level of registrations planned and scheduled to take part in this new test.
So much so,
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Photo gallery: King Juan Carlos in Sanxenxo: his meeting with the public and the media
Juan Carlos I resides, as guest of honor of the emir, in a luxurious mansion on the select island of Nurai, a quarter of an hour by boat from Abu Dhabi.
Sources from the environment of the king emeritus place Mohamed bin Zayed as payer also of the
jet
private in which Juan Carlos I has traveled to Spain;
the one that took him to Vigo on Thursday and this Monday to Madrid, first, and back to Abu Dhabi, later.
However, the aircraft (an Aruba-flagged Gulsfstream G-450 in the Dutch Antilles) is not owned by the Emirati royal family, but belongs to a business charter company based in Angola and its cost is to tens of thousands of euros, 100,000 according to some calculations.
On board, in addition to the crew, part of the Spanish personnel that provides service in the emirate of the Persian Gulf traveled.
It so happens that both on Thursday, when he arrived, and this Monday, when he left, there was a direct flight by commercial airline from Dubai to Madrid, which only happens on a few days of the week.
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