The investiture debate Alberto Núñez Feijóo took place in the Cortes with the presence of the two kings in Spain: the king emeritus Juan Carlos I in Sanxenxoand his son, the king Felipe VI, in the Zarzuela Palace. Surely Juan Carlos I did not rule out having a meeting with his son given the circumstance that King Felipe was inaugurating the La Toja Forum on Thursday the 28th, 15 kilometers or 12 minutes from Sanxenxo. Or perhaps it was a way to remember that he was there, according to sources familiar with the royal movements, when the journalists stationed in front of the Sanxenxo Nautical Club asked him on Thursday the 28th, returning from sailing with his sister Margarita and his niece María Zurita, If he was going “to be able to see his son who is in Galicia,” he answered: “Surely.”
But, surely, given that the opening of the Forum was followed by the second investiture vote in the Cortes, scheduled for the next day, Friday the 29th, and given that in the first two days of Tuesday and Wednesday, Felipe VI had been brought and carried out, with an unusual prominence, in various interventions, perhaps a Juan Carlos I-Philip VI meeting the day before would have had an uncontrollable media impact. No, it certainly wasn’t a good idea.
Lo and behold, he was the candidate for an investiture that, strictly speaking, was a self-investiture as president of the Popular Party and the instrument of denunciation of the amnesty to “step on” to Pedro Sánchez, who first brought Felipe VI into the debate.
From the beginning he warned: “In recent weeks, Spaniards have had to listen to expressions of contempt for the vote they freely exercised. Unusual interpretations of the results. And even disqualifications of the coherent proposal of His Majesty the King. And he continued with the royal figure by asking himself: “Should the king have considered the publications on social networks of the parties that refused to go to Zarzuela, as established by the Constitution? & Rdquor;
Explaining that he had “the votes within his reach to be president of the Government but that I do not accept the price they ask of me.” [amnistía] to be one”, Núñez Feijóo pointed out that this measure would be “a direct attack on essential democratic values” and among those values he placed Felipe VI.
“The intervention of the king in 2017 would also be discussed,” he noted.
He was referring to Felipe’s speech on October 3, 2017a speech that, although read on TVE dressed in civilian clothes, sounded more like a captain general’s speech of the armies without sash or supreme command of the Armed Forces (article 62 of the Constitution), which as the “arbitrator” or “moderator” of the nation (article 56.1 of the Constitution).
Already in the interventions he touched the spokesperson of the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV), Aitor Esteban, on Wednesday the 27th, reply to Feijóo with the theme of the king. “Yesterday he said that There is no one above the law. Man… There is one. The king who is inviolable. And as the Constitution is now interpreted [en referencia a la investigación sobre el patrimonio de Juan Carlos I] yes it is above the law. That will have to change one day if we truly believe in the equality that is so preached.”
In effect, that interpretation – and not that the king’s acts are only those endorsed according to article 64 of the Constitution, the rest are private – limited the investigation of the fortune of the emeritus to the period after his abdication on June 18, 2014. And another interpretation about the scope of the communications from the State Attorney General’s Office to Juan Carlos I, realizing that the Treasury was investigating him, allowed him mask two tax regularizationspresented as “spontaneous”, for a total of 5,074,295.68 euros, as a formula to avoid tax crime.
Other open investigations into the expenses of the hunts he attended between June 2014 and 2018, namely, who are the businessmen who paid, have apparently been the subject of an administrative sanction.
“But in any case, this would have invalidated the “complete” character, apart from “truthful.” and “spontaneous”, which is required for tax regularizations and which seemed to have been estimated in 2022 when the Tax Agency gave its consent to its two regularizations, recalls Carlos Cruzado, lawyer, State audit and accounting technician and president Gestha ( Union of Technicians of the Ministry of Finance) to this newspaper.
Shopping or gifts
The “reintegration” process progressive transition of Juan Carlos I to Spanish life assumes in turn its tax residence in Abu DhabiUnited Arab Emirates, a decision (effective from fiscal year 2022) that has been reported to the Tax agency for your information that the king emeritus is not a Spanish taxpayer, because the requirement for him to continue being so is no longer met. And what is that? “That the main nucleus or base of its activities or economic interests no longer resides in Spain, as established by Spanish regulations to grant tax residence to a citizen.”
And the “main core or basis of your economic activities or interests, what does it consist of?” Because like the girls, it seems that there are some. Because? Well, because at the same time as it was leaked that Juan Carlos I was a tax resident in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, at the beginning of 2023, it was known that Juan Carlos I has made a significant investment where he now resides taxably: has bought a house.
“The idea that this investment or purchase cannot be investigated because it is tax resident in Abu Dhabi is not correct. The question is where the money came from and when it was obtained,” explains Cruzado.
Was it a gift? Whose? It is not the first property that Juan Carlos I has received as an undeclared gift, since he protected the interpretation of the Constitution most favorable to his interests.
In the criminal investigation of prosecutor Yves Bertossa, Corinna zu Sayn-Wittgenstein, the ex-lover of Juan Carlos Irevealed apartment shopping in the Swiss Alpsin the town of Villars sur Ollon, where the Domaine Rochegrise complex is located, between Lake Leman and Gstaad, at 1,500 meters above sea level, and with views over the peaks of Les Diablerets, a love nest that they shared for several years.
and there was another famous gift. The one who made Juan Carlos I the Sultan of Oman Qabus bin Said, a penthouse in the Belgravia neighborhood, very close to Corinna’s house – in whose purchase Juan Carlos I helped his then lover – for a price of 62.7 million euros. This “gift” It took place in early July 2014, less than a month after her abdication. But it has not been the subject of investigation either.
Special measurement
The “naturalness” with which the tax residence of Juan Carlos I in a foreign country has been accepted – wouldn’t it be a scandal if a former Spanish president did the same, to speak of a second authority of the State? – also overlooks the fact that when he abdicated he Mariano Rajoy’s government rondón promoted the capacity of the emeritus king in an organic law to rationalize the public sector before all types of civil and criminal matters (Supreme Court) along with the other members of the Household of His Majesty the King.
In the explanatory statement it is stated: “The new article that is introduced attributes knowledge of the civil and criminal cases that could be directed against him due to the aforementioned events to the Supreme Court, taking into account the dignity of the figure of the person who has been King. of Spain, as well as the treatment given to the holders of other magistracies and powers of the State” [lo que vale para la reina consorte o al consorte de la reina y a los príncipes de Asturias, así como al consorte del rey o de la reina que hubiere abdicado).
Por esta razón, la defensa de Juan Carlos I arguyó contra Corinna zu Sayn-Wittgenstein en el Tribunal Superior de Justicia de Inglaterra y Gales que el rey emérito era miembro de la Casa de Su Majestad el Rey Felipe VI -sin serlo-, argumento que fue rechazado por los jueces para concederle la inmunidad [solo se le dio para el periodo en que ejercía como rey].
And, furthermore, with the excuse of said fortification, the inviolability of the monarch experienced another return of security with the aforementioned fortification – despite the validity of the requirement for the endorsement of those that are acts of the king.
According to the law: “In accordance with the terms of the constitutional text, all acts carried out by the King or Queen during the time in which they hold the Head of State, whatever their nature, are protected by inviolability and are exempt from responsibility”.
Related news
He 31 October next, on the occasion of the coming of age of Infanta Leonorday on which will swear the Constitution before the Cortes, the royal family will hold a commemoration meeting in which Juan Carlos I, who will attend, will take another step in his “reintegration” in the El Pardo Palace.
By then it is highly likely that Judge Rowena Collins Rice’s verdict – appealable – on Corinna’s civil lawsuit for harassment will be known.