(Bloomberg) -- First he gave up his crown, then he was stripped of his official income. Now Juan Carlos I is abandoning the country where he reigned for almost four decades for self-exile and disgrace.
The public humiliation of the 82-year-old former king is driven by a desperate effort to shore up the Spanish monarchy: Felipe VI, the present ruler, has been battling for months to isolate himself from his father’s mounting legal problems. But it’s not just the monarchy that’s at stake.
Less than three years after separatists in the northeastern region of Catalonia tried to force a breakaway from Spain, the royal family’s travails are giving fresh encouragement to the independence movement.
“This is an opportunity,” Pere Aragones, the pro-independence vice president of Catalonia, said in an interview. “We need to be very demanding now, because if there’s ever a moment to rethink everything, it’s now.”
The risk for the Spanish establishment is that a collapse in support for the crown could trigger a broader debate on the constitution and open up the scars of Catalonia all over again. That would mean the resurfacing of a politically divisive issue that polarized Spain while weighing on government bonds and hurting stocks, business and outside investment.
Catalan Crisis
To be sure, the formal hurdles to constitutional reform are high. Abolishing the monarchy or changing national borders would require a super majority in two successive parliaments and then a referendum.
But the Catalan crisis of October 2017 showed that the legal order can start to wobble when you have heavily armed riot police clashing with protestors on the streets.
And this time around it wouldn’t be the conservative People’s Party in power in Madrid, but a left-wing coalition that is much more ambivalent on the issue of Spanish unity. Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez twice negotiated votes from Catalan separatists to take office, while his coalition partner, Pablo Iglesias of far-left group Podemos, favors a referendum on Catalan independence (though says he would make the case for a united Spain).
On Tuesday, Sanchez said it was appropriate for Juan Carlos to leave the country and that Spain needs solid institutions. Iglesias said his exit “leaves the monarchy in a very compromised position.”
Born in Exile
Juan Carlos was born in exile in Rome after his father stepped down as king, and re-established the monarchy after the death of the dictator Francisco Franco in 1975. But whatever regard he gained for his actions then has long since faded, and his deteriorating reputation has been dragging down the monarchy since before his own abdication in 2014.
The former king’s latest problems stem from a Swiss prosecutor’s investigation into payments he allegedly received from fellow royals in the Middle East and subsequent transfers to a former lover. The Supreme Court in Madrid, the only Spanish institution with the authority to investigate the former head of state, is considering whether to open its own probe based on the information from Geneva.
In response, Felipe in March shut off his father’s public stipend and renounced his inheritance as well as any assets “that aren’t in line with the law or the criteria of rectitude and integrity.” He denied any knowledge of two foundations linked to the case.
Still, the warning signs are flashing for the palace. An online poll of 1,000 people released in May showed just 35% supported the monarchy and 52% wanted to switch to a republic.
Isolated Figure
As he tries to consolidate his reign, Felipe is an isolated figure in Spain. With just a skeleton staff compared with Queen Elizabeth II in the U.K., the king lacks the organizational muscle to impose himself on public life and has seen parts of his kingdom become effectively no-go areas.
Felipe’s 14-year-old daughter Leonor, the Princess of Girona, is the patron of an annual prize awarded in the Catalan city from which she draws her title. Yet Girona is a hotbed of separatist support and last year the ceremony was shifted to Barcelona.
Juan Carlos compensated for the shortage of official resources with an informal network of allies in business and politics who were always ready to help out the royals. But Felipe has steered away from those relationships in an effort to clean up the family’s image.
Juan Carlos’s self-imposed exile looks like the latest attempt to put more distance between himself and his son. The former king remains available to deal with any requirements from Spain’s public prosecutor, his lawyer, Javier Sanchez-Junco, said in a statement.
And yet the public split at the heart of the royal family is becoming a telling symbol of the tensions at the heart of a divided country.
“They’re really giving precious political capital to those of us who are republicans and pro-independence,” Aragones said. “They should abdicate and start the transformation away from a constitutional monarchy.”
©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
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