He writes on Spanish politics and culture for southern Spain's English-language newspaper, Sur in English, and for The Spectator. Juan Carlos’s televised intervention in 1981 appeared to have been decisive in quelling a military coup aimed at destroying Spain’s fragile democracy. The most recent royal flight from Spain has been presented by both Juan Carlos and Felipe as a last-ditch attempt to save the monarchy from further reputational damage. Juan Carlos was also said to have been hunting elephants, despite then being the honorary president of the Spanish branch of the World Wildlife Fund: By the time he’d apologized for going to Botswana—“I made a mistake,” he said—a petition calling for his resignation from the charity’s presidency had collected 85,000 signatures. But in recent years, public attention has switched from these laudable achievements to the former king’s alleged fraudulent activities. Repeated parliamentary motions against the crown, surveys over time placing the institution bottom in popularity rankings, rallies every time that Felipe visits Catalonia, a popular rejection of his father's alleged corruption scandals… The already unpopular institution descended into more discredit after the king's role in the 2017 independence referendum crisis. Indeed, in the last poll published in July this year, the crown got 1.59 points, its worst score since 2014, coinciding with former king Juan Carlos' alleged corruption case that resulted in him moving to the UAE. After Franco's death in 1975, Juan Carlos succeeded him as … Spaniards have been casting ballots in unofficial people's votes to abolish the monarchy. The amateur painter still shows an eye for spin. In 1969, Franco declared that Juan Carlos, Prince of Spain, the Count of Barcelona's son, would be his successor. Many say it's time Spain … But it’s hard to believe that the former king is not more concerned about protecting himself from Swiss and Spanish authorities and from the backlash that will follow if their inquiries prove justified. According to Verstrynge, the reason the media is no longer silent is “because the elephant in the room is so big that it can’t be hidden.” 5 Decision 126/1997, of July 3rd. Kyiv: The city council of Barcelona decided to adopt a resolution calling for the elimination of the "outdated" monarchy.. About this on Twitter reported the first deputy mayor of Barcelona Gerardo Pisarello. In July only 15.4% of Catalans granted Felipe a score of 5 or above, while 78.3% failed him in a poll specifically on the role various institutions have played during the Covid-19 crisis. Juan Carlos’s televised intervention in 1981 appeared to have been decisive in quelling a military coup aimed at destroying Spain’s fragile democracy. Juan Carlos is also credited with defusing the attempted coup of February 1981, when armed forces stormed the parliament in a rebellion against Spain’s nascent democracy. In March, the king took the extreme measures of cancelling Juan Carlos’s annual state stipend of 200,000 euros ($222,000) and renouncing his inheritance, reacting to rumors that he stood to benefit from some of his father’s offshore funds. Spain has long resisted the rise of the far-right, because Basque and Catalan separatism animated nationalist passions—but the rise of Vox in Andalusia shows that the country is not immune from xenophobic politics. His grandfather, King Alfonso XIII, fled to Italy in 1931, when that year’s elections deposed the monarchy and led to the declaration of the Second Republic, which lasted until Franco’s rebellion and the subsequent outbreak of civil war in 1939. 4 Franco considered himself monarchical and defender of monarchy, although he wanted a monarchy compatible with his will. The centrist Ciudadanos, meanwhile, said the former king’s departure would enable his son to “carry out his functions in the best circumstances.”. “One also has to take into account the amount of corruption the country has had to swallow over the past few decades, thanks to the Partido Popular. Ahead of this year’s opening of parliament in February, Basque, Catalan, and Galician leftist parties jointly declared that “we have no king” and described the Spanish royal family as an “anachronistic institution,” a position that is shared, in its essentials, by the government’s junior coalition partner, Podemos. And it’s not the first time that a member of the House of Bourbon has resorted to such tactics in moments of crisis. For decades, the monarchy in Spain has enjoyed unusual protection that led many media to practice a kind of self-censorship in order to hide possible scandals that affected the royal family. For the Spanish royals, the timing could be just as disastrous now as it was in 2012. What today we know as Spain and Portugal or the Iberian peninsula was conquered by the Muslims. In a speech on Tuesday Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez praised the royal house for distancing itself from the ex-regent, but among Sánchez's left-wing coalition partners and on the streets, calls for the abolition of the monarchy are growing louder. In 1947, Franco proclaimed the restoration of the monarchy but did not allow the pretender, Juan, Count of Barcelona, to take the throne. In 2018, the online newspaper El Español published transcripts of secretly recorded conversations between the German Danish businesswoman Corinna zu Sayn-Wittgenstein—Juan Carlos’s former lover and his traveling companion on the 2012 Botswana trip—and an ex-police officer, in which she allegedly talks about his money laundering efforts and is heard to say, “The king has no concept of what is legal and what isn’t.”. Asked about the king in general in April 2019, those polled gave him an average score of 1.82, and he only merited a pass from 19% of those taking part in the study. Pro-monarchy demos in Spain in response to King Juan Carlo's decision to abdicate. The monarchy is one of the few symbols of a united Spain, and the unpicking of the 1978 constitution – which would be needed to pave the way for a Republic – … The relationship between the Catholic Church and the Spanish Monarchy, the influence and the sentiment for the religion grew. Spain's monarchy in danger. Somewhat less surprisingly, the conservative Popular Party (PP), traditionally the party of choice for Spanish monarchists, showed its unwavering support for Juan Carlos, praising his “determining and decisive role” in Spain’s shift to democracy in 1975. Argument: This kind of silence, which existed in Spain for more than three decades, has now ended, although the monarchy is still enjoying positive coverage from almost all the press and TV channels. Ciudananos’s much vaguer statement, focusing on Felipe rather than the alleged offenses of his father, does not pin the newer party into any such corner. A photo published by a Spanish news agency on Aug. 8 appeared to show him stepping off a plane in Abu Dhabi—perhaps a sign that the king still has contacts in the Middle East, as he did at the time of the Botswana scandal. Spain - Spain - Government and society: From 1833 until 1939 Spain almost continually had a parliamentary system with a written constitution. The Monarchy underwent a period in exile during the dictatorship of General Franco (1936-1975), but was reestablished after his death in 1975, when Juan Carlos I was named as Franco’s successor. Indeed, the parties for a Catalan republic have rejected meetings with the king or events where he was taking part on the grounds of his "lack of apology" for the 2017 speech. By continuing to browse the site you are agreeing to our use of cookies. Eventually bowing to public pressure, the king abdicated in 2014, handing over the reins to his son, Felipe. This is an audio version of the Wikipedia Article: Monarchy of Spain Listening is a more natural way of learning, when compared to reading. Spain hosts the world's third-largest number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Today, Spain is a constitutional monarchy, and there is thus no person holding the title of President of Spain. Royal inflexibility is weakening Pedro Sánchez’s ability to negotiate while encouraging Catalan secessionists. Yet Juan Carlos enjoyed great popularity throughout all but the last few years of his reign. Spain’s late and unequal industrialization and the imbalance created by a weak political centre and an economically stronger periphery. These moves aren’t without precedent: In June 2015, Felipe stripped his sister Cristina of her Duchess of Palma de Mallorca title because her husband, Inaki Urdangarin, faced fraud charges. The king made a televised address to the nation calling for the rule of law, much as Felipe would do 36 years later in response to escalating tensions between the central government and Catalan separatists. In 2018—the same year that Swiss authorities started looking into Juan Carlos’s financial affairs—Urdangarin was sentenced to five years and 10 months in prison for embezzlement of public funds. The monarchists fought with Franco during the Civil War. However, the Prime Minister holds the official title of President of the Government For more detalis, see Read more, Less than 15% of Catalans prefer having a king to a republic, and hundreds greeted Felipe with protests on previous visits. The most recent royal flight from Spain has been presented by both Juan Carlos and Felipe as a last-ditch attempt to save the monarchy from further reputational damage, The PP, it seems, is unwilling or unable to entertain the prospect that this once revered king is now guilty of financial crimes. Attempting to protect the already tarnished public image of the royal household, Felipe has dissociated himself as much as possible from his father. Contemporaries witnessed the accelerated incursion into Indian lands, the continuous exploration and spasmodic settlement of rustic peripheries from Patagonia to the Pacific north-west, and the military repossession of Florida, Louisiana, and … Juan Carlos’s hasty departure from Spain is not without precedent, either. Staying in Spain would also have prevented speculation about the extradition policies of the country for which he is headed, the key candidate currently being the Dominican Republic. The findings of the Swiss public prosecutor's office of irregular accounts and trust funds in tax havens, which have transferred more than 100 million dollars in the last decade, in the name of Juan Carlos I and Felipe VI, has sparked popular outrage. The northern part of the peninsula was under the Spanish Monarchs, they had a clear vision for Spain and… Sánchez also suggested that he favored updating the 1978 Spanish Constitution, according to which the head of state is “inviolable”—in other words, Juan Carlos is legally immune from any offenses he may have committed before his abdication in 2014. Based on the Ipsos Global Advisor’s 2018 survey, the Spanish royals have one of the lowest levels of public support of all the world’s monarchies. Bet on 2021 Atp Madrid, Spain Men Singles - Stage of Elimination - R. Nadal odds - Sun, May 09, 2021 at Sports Interaction. (Although in a world of 24-hour international news, internet, and social media, it’s questionable whether he has really escaped the latter at all.). The polls showed a decrease in the popularity of the king after the autumn 2017 independence push. The Spanish monarchy came under the scrutiny of lawmakers in the Catalan parliament on Friday in the wake of former king Juan Carlos' exit from Spain amid corruption allegations. The Spanish monarchy is known for being Europe’s most scandal-prone royal family. Spaniards are tired of corruption, especially of scandals featuring already wealthy public figures allegedly accruing even larger fortunes at times of national hardship. The various demonstrations called ahead of Spain's King Felipe's visit to Barcelona on Friday October 9, 2020 are only one of the signs that show that the relationship between the Spanish Royal Family and Catalonia is not an easy one. Sánchez, however, has rejected all demands from Podemos and Catalan and Basque groups for a parliamentary inquiry into Juan Carlos’s alleged financial misdemeanors. Catalonia's regional parliament on Friday passed a non-binding motion condemning the monarchy in the wake of the abrupt departure abroad by Spain's former king Juan Carlos amid a … visit to Barcelona on Friday October 9, 2020, former king Juan Carlos' alleged corruption case that resulted in him moving to the UAE, Felipe visited the iconic Poblet monastery, blocking one of the main roads in and out of Barcelona for hours, The 15M anti-austerity movement, ten years on, Protests mark three months since jailing of rapper, Barcelona to dissuade crowds with police patrols in strategic spots, Gimnàs Social Sant Pau, a community center at the heart of Barcelona's housing crisis, Archive image of Spanish king, Felipe VI, with his father and predecessor, Juan Carlos. Just as details of Juan Carlos’s lavish hunting holiday to Botswana broke at the height of the last recession, so the most recent controversy comes as the coronavirus pandemic’s economic impact starts to bite. "With their decisions, they systematically violated norms that were legally and rightfully passed, showing an unacceptable disloyalty towards the state powers," he said in a speech seen by the pro-independence camp as a break of the political neutrality the constitution obliges him to have. Elimination communication or natural infant hygiene is practiced by many cultures around the world, but unfortunately has been lost in the West. It is a highly developed country and a high income country, with the world's fourteenth-largest economy by nominal GDP and the sixteenth-largest by PPP. Repeated attempts by Catalan secessionists to break away are increasing polarization and preventing reconciliation. Ever since the Catalan government's Center for Opinion Studies (CEO) began to ask about the monarchy in 2014, the institution has not received a score higher than 3 out of 10. The letter was the final step in a downward spiral that began eight years ago—but the former monarch’s ignominious departure is not, or at least not solely, about shielding the reputation of a once adored Spanish institution; it’s also about self-protection. Since former Spanish king Juan Carlos's departure rumours are rife that his son King Felipe VI forced him out of the royal palace. 6 In 1984, when Spain signed the Convention on the Elimination … Bertossa is also looking into the origin of offshore funds held in a Liechtenstein-based foundation linked to Swiss bank accounts. Especially after 2017, the Catalan parliament has repeatedly approved motions against the role of the crown, including one in October 2018, when lawmakers demanded the abolition of Spain's monarchy – a text that was subsequently blocked by Spain's Constitutional Court. LONDON — Britain’s royal family and television have a complicated relationship. Managing rifts in alliances should be built into strategic planning. On taking over from the generalissimo, Juan Carlos won enormous respect among Spaniards for steering the country toward democracy, rather than perpetuating Francoism, as Franco had expected him to do. Except during the First Republic (1873–74), the Second Republic (1931–36), and the Spanish Civil War (1936–39), Spain also always had a monarchy. "It is the state powers' duty to guarantee the constitutional order and the normal functioning of institutions, the enforcement of the rule of law and Catalonia's self-rule, based on the constitution," he said, a few weeks before the Spanish executive imposed direct rule. Finally, this June, Spain’s Supreme Court opened inquiries seeking to determine if Juan Carlos was guilty of any crimes in relation to the Saudi money or the Medina-Mecca contract. Spain is a secular parliamentary democracy and a parliamentary monarchy, with King Felipe VI as head of state. Europe Spain asks: Is monarchy right for us? On Aug. 3, 82-year-old Juan Carlos I, the king of Spain from 1975 to 2014, announced his decision to leave the country because of “public repercussions that certain past events in my life are causing.” In a letter published on the Spanish royal household’s website, he claimed his departure would also allow his son, King Felipe VI, to continue to perform his royal duties in “tranquility.”. Felipe has had a much more grounded upbringing, so he should have no problem in shoring up the monarchy and guaranteeing its future. Is Spain’s Royal Family Finished? The former king’s lawyer has stated that, despite leaving Spain, Juan Carlos will still be available to assist public prosecutors should it be necessary; nevertheless, his choice of exile destination will be highly revealing. Alleged fraudulent activities for being Europe ’ s late and unequal industrialization and the imbalance created by weak... 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