Things grind slowly. And that slow but sure march is what is appreciated on every trip we take. Juan Carlos I has done to Spain since he voluntarily went into exile to the capital of the Emirates. On August 3, 2020, the letter he sent to his son, the king, was made public. Felipe VI, to inform him of his decision to leave Spain and settle in Abu Dhabi.
On his fourth visit to our country (and his), the emeritus king participates in a new Sanxenxo regatta, in a much more visible and open way than on previous occasions, after that first stay in May 2022. The great media impact From that first return, his statements to the press, letting himself be loved by the people, put Zarzuela in an uncomfortable situation and he received harsh criticism from sectors of the collation government.
On subsequent trips, the former head of state barely made himself visible, not even lowering the window of his friend’s car. Pedro Campos, who takes him from one place to another, to greet the press and his fans. She didn’t even leave her host’s house to have lunch or dinner at some of the excellent restaurants in the area, as she had done other times.
However, everything has changed this week, with details so evident that they demonstrate his son Felipe’s will to gradually normalize his father’s presence in Spain, trying to get us used to seeing him in Spain, making these visits something common and everyday.
Juan Carlos I is 85 years old. For some analysts, if the emeritus ended his days outside of Spain it would cause an enormous commotion, although there are those who believe that the population is more concerned about the prices of gasoline or olive oil, or the rise in mortgage prices.
But in broad sectors, not only monarchists, it is considered that forcing Juan Carlos to undergo forced expatriation is not wise. And that has made Zarzuela reduce his intransigence towards the father of the current Monarch and allow, for example, that her sister, Infanta Margarita, has visited him these days in Galicia, accompanied by her daughter. Maria Zurita and the godchildren of the emeritus, little Carlitos and Alfonso Zurita, Doña Margarita’s other son.
The king was delighted to have his younger sister nearby, blind from birth, whom he has adored since they were children. Those who have been close to them say that he has treated her with great affection, always holding her hand. Doña Margarita has stayed with her brother at her house. Pedro Campos so as not to be separated from him, while María Zurita, her brother Alfonso and little Carlos stayed in a hotel.
It has been widely commented that Felipe VI, who attended the Forum in La Toja, was this weekend a few kilometers away, in Sanxenxo, but they did not meet due to an alleged “veto” of the current king to meet his father. “Nothing less true,” they tell Informalia, from those around the king emeritus.
Institutional presence
That meeting was not planned because Don Felipe came with just the right time and after all they are going to see the rest of the family in a month in Madrid, at the private party after Princess Leonor’s swearing in of the Constitution. “Don Juan Carlos had lunch at the D’Berto restaurant in O’Grove, near La Toja, a table that had been reserved for a couple of months, and there was no place for a meeting with his son, who was busy at the Forum” , they explain to us.
This same source adds that the misunderstanding of this frustrated meeting comes from a question that was asked from afar to Don Juan Carlos regarding whether he would see his son. The former head of state answered: “Surely”, perhaps thinking about his next appointment in Madrid. “He is an 85-year-old man, with hearing aids and already quite distracted, that was all,” our source clarifies.
There is a green light for Juan Carlos I on his last return to Spain. This Sunday he presides over the regatta awards ceremony in front of the public together with the president of the Xunta and the hard core of the Galician government, something unthinkable a few months ago. And on the 20th of this month of October, he will return again to sail and perhaps remain in Spain until the family meeting in Madrid on the 31st.