Don Juan Carlos celebrates his 85th birthday this Thursday, January 5. He blows out candles far from home, in Abu Dhabi, where he has lived since August 2020. This is his third cake since his self-expatriation. A stage of his life marked by his invisibility and his absence on the public scene. The distance from him allows him to Felipe VI continue working without the shadow of his father, who has plummeted towards discredit, erosion and lack of transparency. His words “Explanations for what?” in its tour by Sanxenxo in May 2022 caused a commotion due to the distance they transmit and the parallel reality in which the former head of state has settled. Especially when in March, via an official statement, he expressed concern about “past events” in his “private life”, which he “deeply” regretted. Juan Carlos, in Pontevedra, seemed oblivious to the investigations to which he has been subjected, to his regularizations with the Treasury, to the case Corinna Larsen and your immunity. It is difficult for him to return.
His daughters unwaveringly support the emeritus, Cristina y Elena. In addition, it is a visible support. The infantas planned to travel to Abu Dhabi to wrap up their father for his 85th birthday. It would be the best gift for the former head of state: having his daughters close at the time of blowing out the candles.
This same day 5, doña sofia He also prepared his suitcases. The emeritus queen has flown to Rome to attend the funeral mass for Benedict XVI, which will be presided over by Pope Francis in St. Peter’s Basilica, in the Vatican. Joseph Ratzinger died on December 31 at the age of 95.
Two lineups in the family
Elena and Cristina have been to the United Arab Emirates on several occasions. In one of them, in the middle of Holy Week in 2022: they traveled with five of their children to give Don Juan Carlos a hug. Doña Sofía did not travel. The undated family photo was released on Good Friday. A viralized pose, which monopolized all the informative interest of Holy Week and which eclipsed the reappearance of Leonor in Spain. Doña Sofía, on this front, is not here. She is aligned with her son, Felipe VI, to whom she shows a solid and unwavering loyalty.
Months after that posed, the most anticipated image arrived. That of the monarch in Sanxenxo in what was the staging of his great return to Spain. A media circus. With regattas and everything.
2022 left us one more photograph. The two kings, Felipe VI and his father, together at the funeral of Isabel II, who died last September. The four kings shared a bench in Westminster Abbey, in London, to bid farewell to the monarch. A historical image for Juan Carlos I, which meant his return to the official agenda; and because we had not seen him with his son for two years at the funeral of the Infanta Pilar.
A turbulent 2022
This birthday has come to Don Juan Carlos with a turbulent end of the year. Corinna Larsen’s podcast filled rivers with ink. The launch date of the sound serial coincided (coincidentally) with the hearing in the Court of Appeal of the High Court, in London, of Corinna’s lawsuit against the former head of state for alleged harassment. With hair and marks, the German spoke in her serial of the “multiple infidelities” of Doña Sofía’s husband; of “the bags with money”; and “of the alcohol that had clouded his memory”, among other niceties. Larsen emptied the magazine on his podcasts. His ammunition, in the form of a story, turned into a cascade of reproaches. This series was joined by the resolution of the London Court, which finally ruled in favor of the emeritus recognize his immunity in the proceedings prior to his abdication as King of Spain in 2014, since “the pre-abdication” of the emeritus is “immune to the jurisdiction of the courts of this country”. Juan Carlos I’s defense claimed that he is one of the six people that make up the Royal Family and that the actions against him could affect the current head of state, Felipe VI.
In this scenario, what future does Juan Carlos hold in Abu Dhabi apart from invisibility? To the eternal question about when will he come back? Another equally complicated one follows: And where would you settle in Spain? 85 is a very marked anniversary.
This year his granddaughter Leonor is of legal age. Will the oath to the Constitution be the time to return it? The steps that Juan Carlos I has taken in his formation marked the path of Felipe VI. At the age of 17, in 1955, he entered the Military Academies and Schools of the three Armies, where he obtained the rank of Officer. Starting with the one in Zaragoza. He followed in the footsteps of Don Felipe, who entered the same academy at the same age as his parent: in September 1985, at the age of 17. There, in Zaragoza, he took the Oath to the Flag on October 11 of that year. Leonor, also 17, would continue that journey in September when her training in the Army begins.