The never-ending self-exile of King Juan Carlos

Just a few weeks ago, King Juan Carlos left Sanxenxo, heading for Vigo Airport, while the Juan Sebastián de Elcano , with Princess Leonor on board, crossed the Pontevedra estuary towards Marín. The former king and the future queen, separated by the estuary and by history.

Today, August 3, marks five years since the publication of a letter in which King Juan Carlos informed his son, King Felipe, of his decision to leave Spain: “Guided by the conviction of providing the best service to the Spanish people, their institutions, and to you as King, I inform you of my considered decision to move, at this time, outside of Spain.”

Five years later, on the eve of the 50th anniversary of his proclamation as king on November 22, 1975, Juan Carlos I is further from Spain than the day he left. After threatening to file lawsuits against Miguel Ángel Revilla and Corinna Larsen, the former to defend his honor and the latter to try to recover the money she believed was a gift and he considers a deposit, both legal proceedings are at a standstill. King Juan Carlos's crusade now focuses on vindicating his political and institutional legacy, overshadowed by his private relationships and financial affairs.

Hence his initial intention to sue Revilla and Larsen, and his dedication in recent months to dictating his memoirs to the French writer Laurence Debray. The book, titled Reconciliation , is already in print and, in Spain, published by Planeta, will be published before the end of the year.

On the 50th anniversary of his accession to the throne, Juan Carlos I will publish his memoirs, entitled "Reconciliation."

King Juan Carlos has waited these past few years for his fundamental role in Spain's recent history to be appreciated. He believes that no one, not even his own family, defends him. He is also concerned about being the weak link in his son's reign, aware that certain sectors of politics and public opinion are using his mistakes, which he acknowledges, to cast doubt on the survival of the Crown.

King Juan Carlos's statement and departure from Spain effectively ended, at that moment, the crisis caused by the constant pressure received at the Zarzuela Palace for the King to make a decision about his father. The appearance in various media outlets of information regarding the existence of foundations abroad with funds that the former monarch had not declared, in addition to doubts about their origin, encouraged various sectors, from those associated with the state's sewers to left-wing parties, including sectors of the government, to the current head of state to strip his father of his royal status and even expel him from the royal family. Months earlier, in response to this same information, King Felipe had already made the symbolic gesture of renouncing a future inheritance from this money of unknown origin and had also withdrawn his father's allowance from the Royal Household budget.

A self-imposed exile began, along with a period in which the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office investigated the accounts of King Juan Carlos, who was forced to regularize unpaid taxes on various donations with the Treasury. At the same time, in Switzerland, prosecutor Yves Bertossa opened a case to investigate whether Corina Larsen, King Juan Carlos's former lover, and the advisors and alleged front men Dante Canonica and Arturo Fasana had committed tax evasion and money laundering, a process that ended in nothing. The origin was audio recordings in which Corina Larsen claimed, before the controversial Villarejo, that she had received, as a donation or gift, 65 million euros from King Juan Carlos, who in turn had received them from the King of Saudi Arabia.

King Juan Carlos did not return to Spanish soil until May 20, 2022, almost two years after his departure and after the Public Prosecutor's Office closed its investigations into his possible financial irregularities. He returned under the pretext of participating in regattas in Sanxenxo, but the interest and media coverage exceeded his own expectations. Before returning to Abu Dhabi, he briefly stopped at the Zarzuela Palace and was, to some extent, admonished by his son, the King, who asked him to exercise restraint and discretion in future visits. He did not return until a year later, but in September 2022, King Felipe's first public meeting with his father took place when the two, accompanied by Queen Letizia and Queen Sofía, were in London at the funeral of Elizabeth II. In January 2023, in Athens, they met again for the funeral of Constantine of Greece and also at the memorial service held in February 2024 at Windsor Chapel (England), where King Philip was seen for the first time helping his father walk.

On August 3, 2020, the decision of the King's father to leave the country "for the time being" was made public.

Aside from his increasingly frequent visits to Sanxenxo, King Juan Carlos has barely set foot in Madrid in recent years. He did so privately, attending the family celebration on October 31, 2023, to celebrate Princess Leonor's coming of age. In 2024, he attended the funerals of his nephews Fernando and Juan Gómez-Acebo and the wedding of the Mayor of Madrid, José Luís Martínez-Almeida, to Teresa Urquijo.

Abu Dhabi, where he has established his tax residence, as he announced to the Treasury in January 2023, is his center of operations. However, in the final stages, he also spends time in Geneva (Switzerland), London (England), and recently in Cascais (Portugal). It doesn't seem like his definitive return is imminent, and above all, no one, not even he himself, is paving the way for him to return.