King Juan Carlos will be, once again, in Spain this Thursday with the purpose of participating in the 6mR class Spanish Cup regattas that are held in Sanxenxo (Pontevedra) over the weekend. It will be his third trip, to the same destination and for the same purpose, since he decided to go into self-exile in Abu Dhabi on August 3, 2020. The arrival of the King’s father, at the Vigo airport, will take place between Wednesday night and Thursday morning, in the absence of specifying the flight plan, and he is scheduled to leave Spain, again, next Monday.
It so happens that the arrival of King Juan Carlos in Sanxenxo coincides with the transfer of his son, King Felipe VI, to Marivent, to begin his summer stay on the island. During this weekend, King Juan Carlos will participate in the Spanish Cup and, at the same time, the King will prepare, in the bay of Palma, his participation in the Copa del Rey Mapfre de Vela, which begins on July 31. Two nautical events, two seas (Atlantic and Mediterranean) separated by the peninsula and two kings, separated by their antagonistic way of exercising their functions.
The King’s third visit, since the summer of 2020, takes place after, through people from his personal circle, his resounding denial of information that conditioned his final return to Spain on the arrival of Alberto Núñez Feijóo to the presidency of the Government. This possibility has never been raised, since the will of King Juan Carlos is to continue with his permanent residence in Abu Dhabi and, at the same time, normalize his regular visits to Spain.
The desire of King Juan Carlos, in accordance with his own decisions, made public in different communications, is not to interfere in the normal development of the King’s duties and, at the same time, to maintain his presence in Spain with a low profile until they go unnoticed. Although he communicates his trips to Spain to the Zarzuela in advance, the decision to return sporadically depends exclusively on him, as well as the rest of the trips from Abu Dhabi to other countries, according to the public statements that he himself signed about his decisions to settle in the emirate and not reside in the Zarzuela.
However, from the current government (now in office), King Juan Carlos has been repeatedly asked to publicly explain his actions. This Tuesday, Yolanda Díaz, the leader of Sumar, reiterated that opinion.
From Vigo, King Juan Carlos will travel to Sanxenxo to reside, as he has done on previous occasions, at the home of the shipowner and president of the Galician town’s Yacht Club, Pedro Campos, who will accompany him on his outings to sea. The emeritus king plans to sail on the Bribón in the regatta scheduled for next weekend in order to prepare for his participation in the world championship in the 6mR category that will take place at the end of August in the United Kingdom.
The Sanxenxo regatta, which will take place between July 28 and 30, was scheduled for the first weekend of July but the date was changed so that the trip of King Juan Carlos did not coincide with the start of the electoral campaign. The previous two visits of the King’s father to Spain, although the expectation has been decreasing in intensity, have caused controversy in public opinion and debates among the political class and, above all and unnecessarily, have affected Zarzuela. After the fiasco of his first trip to Spain, in May 2022, when media attention and his own public display altered the recommendations for a private and discreet visit, King Juan Carlos took almost a year to schedule a second visit to Sanxenxo, which took place last April. On this occasion, he was barely seen entering and leaving the Sanxenxo yacht club, always in the car driven by his host, Pedro Campos. There were no stops, no answers, sometimes unintelligible, to questions from the media, as happened on his previous visit.
King Juan Carlos left Spain on August 3, 2020 with the intention of getting away from the controversy caused by the appearance of economic and fiscal irregularities and to reduce the pressure on Zarzuela. His intention was to return to Spain in a few months, but the start of investigations, both in Spain and in Switzerland, lengthened his stay in Abu Dhabi. After concluding the judicial processes, from which he came out well, he decided to establish his permanent residence, and fiscal, in the emirate, a matter that he publicly announced at the same time that he renounced residing, during his stays in Spain, in publicly owned dependencies.
In recent weeks, King Juan Carlos has traveled from Abu Dhabi to Amman to attend, together with Queen Sofía, the wedding of Prince Hussein of Jordan that was held on June 1, and two weeks later, he was in Geneva, again with Queen Sofía, to celebrate the graduation and majority of his granddaughter Irene Urdangarin, in a family reunion in which his daughters, Elena and Cristina and their grandchildren Urdangarín and Marichalar also participated. , in addition to his still son-in-law Iñaki Urdangarin.
On June 24, his name day, King Juan Carlos was in Monaco, invited by Prince Albert, on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the Monte Carlo Yacht Club.
Juan Carlos’ previous visit to Sanxenxo took place between April 19 and 26, when, in addition to participating in the previous Spanish Cup event (although bad weather left him grounded for two of the three scheduled days), he was also in Vitoria to undergo medical tests at the clinic of Dr. Eduardo Anitua, a renowned dentist who, together with his partner and colleague, the traumatologist Mikel Sánchez, are specialists in treatments with plasma rich in growth factors. On that occasion, the trip to Spain was preceded by a two-day stay in London, where King Juan Carlos, in addition to attending a dinner with a group of friends, witnessed the Champions League match that Real Madrid played against Chelsea in London at the Stamford Bridge stadium. The intention of the emeritus was also to hold a meeting with Carlos III, whose coronation was to take place days later, but the appointment did not take place. On his first trip to Spain, in May 2022, the great media expectation generated by his travels and his comments in which he refused to give the explanations required by the Government caused discomfort to the Executive and the King’s House.