Few things bother the government of Pedro Sánchez and the Spanish Royal House as much as knowing that
King Emeritus Juan Carlos I
de Borbón, based in the United Arab Emirates since 2020, plans to visit Spain.
And it is what seems to happen this Wednesday.
It would be his second visit since he lived outside of Spain and, this time,
there would be no private meeting with his son, the current monarch Felipe V
I.
Like a year ago, the emeritus does not want to miss the regattas in Sanxenxo, the municipality of the Galician Rias Baixas that awaits him with open arms.
This was stated by the mayor of Sanxenxo, Telmo Martín, who considers King Juan Carlos an excellent ambassador to promote his city.
"Hopefully his physical conditions allow him to haggle," he added.
King Emeritus Juan Carlos I of Spain, on his sailboat Bribón, in May 2022. Photo: AFP
El Borbón, who has already turned 85, would come to Spain to
train for the world championship
to be held on the English island of Wight at the end of August.
This weekend the regatta for the Spanish Cup will be held in Sanxenxo and Juan Carlos will be in command of the sailboat baptized with a name that, in some way, alludes to its troubled past: the Bribón, a ship with which last year the rey emeritus came out fourth.
In Spain, Juan Carlos I was investigated for alleged tax evasion and apparent financial management that was not very transparent, but the Spanish Justice archived these cases: the possible crimes prescribed or could not be investigated because, until his abdication, in 2014, the emeritus king had immunity .
Meeting with Carlos III?
For days it was rumored in Spain that London could be the first stop on his trip from Abu Dhabi.
There was talk of a lunch alone with King Carlos III
, weeks before his coronation, who is also a relative of the Bourbon.
Juan Carlos and Isabel II, the queen who died in September last year and left the British throne to Carlos III, were great-great-grandchildren of Queen Victoria of England.
And, on the other hand, the mother of Philip of Edinburgh, who was the husband of Queen Elizabeth II, was the first cousin of Juan Carlos I's grandmother, Queen Victoria Eugenia.
Despite being relatives, Buckingham Palace did not confirm if Carlos III will receive Juan Carlos.
And the Spanish embassy in London also distanced itself from the possible visit: "It would be a private trip and, therefore, it does not fall within the competence of the diplomatic headquarters," they assured.
This Tuesday, however, the
Daily Mail
published photos of Juan Carlos, taken on Monday night, leaving the exclusive Oswald club in London.
There, in the Mayfair neighborhood, an emeritus king in a blue suit and pink tie dined with friends.
His time in London would also coincide with his desire to be this Tuesday, at nine o'clock at night, in the box at Stamford Bridge to attend the Champions League quarter-final match between Chelsea and Real Madrid.
Juan Carlos I and his son Felipe VI, during the coronation of the new king, in June 2014. Photo: REUTERS
Nor is it known precisely where he is going to stay
when he lands in Spain.
Whether or not he will be a guest again in Sanxenxo of his friend and president of the Yacht Club, Pedro Campos.
Three years out of Spain
After starring in some
scandalous episodes
, such as the killing of elephants on a private safari in Botswana that he shared with Corinna Larsen, one of his passions, Juan Carlos I left the throne of Spain to his son, Felipe VI.
The episode of the elephant hunt in Botswana, in 2015, caused great discomfort in Spain.
Since then, investigations for alleged tax fraud plus Corinna's statements and complaints have made her presence in the Palacio de la Zarzuela unbearable.
For this reason, and after a long negotiation, the king who was anointed by Francisco Franco to govern Spain when he died, something that Juan Carlos did for almost the next forty years -between 1975 and 2014-, agreed to leave the kingdom.
In August 2020, he settled in Abu Dhabi, where he receives pampering and privileges from sheikhs and emirs.
The last one is the private jet of Emir Mohamed bin Zayed with which Juan Carlos will land at the Vigo airport.
The Bourbon is expected to arrive in Galicia this Wednesday, around eight o'clock at night.
No remorse, no low profile
Juan Carlos does not seem to go through his ostracism with any kind of remorse or low-profile will.
And whenever he can, he joins the international agenda of the European monarchy.
King Juan Carlos I and Queen Sofía, in September 2022, during the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II in London.
Photo: AFP
He attended the funeral of Elizabeth II, in London, in September 2022 and, in January of this year, he was in Athens, during the burial of the last king of Greece and brother of Queen Sofia, Constantine.
In addition, in February, she traveled to Paris to be present at the ceremony in which Mario Vargas Llosa, the Nobel Prize winner for Literature, was named a member of the French Academy.
And despite the fact that at the end of last year he managed to get the United Kingdom to recognize his immunity from the harassment lawsuit that Corinna filed in the London courts, the emeritus king seems destined not to give peace to the Spanish Crown.
A few days ago it emerged that a British NGO would have received a million-dollar donation from a close friend of Juan Carlos who recently died, the historian Joaquín Romero Maura, and that this money would come from a fund linked to the king emeritus in a tax haven on the canal from La Mancha.
political tension
One month before the Spanish municipal and regional elections
, the visit of Juan Carlos I adds to the harshness.
It is impossible for the Spanish not to comment on the imminent arrival of the emeritus, but his closest environment prevents his days in Galicia from becoming the media spectacle that was his visit last year.
The Spaniards are still waiting for a word from their most charismatic king, that of the Transition, the one who knew how to maintain the helm of the country when in February 1981 Lieutenant Colonel Antonio Tejero attempted a coup.
But Juan Carlos feigns dementia.
Last year, in Sanxenxo, when the press asked him if he was planning to explain, from the passenger seat of the car that was transporting him, he rolled down the window and replied: "Explanations for what?"
Madrid. Correspondent
BC
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