“Renewed monarchy for a new era”. This was the motto with which Felipe VI took on a difficult legacy ten years ago (June 19, 2014) in Spain. It was mainly due to his father, whom he nevertheless honored with great respect in his inaugural address to parliament. “In front of all Spaniards, with great emotion I too would like to pay tribute to my father, King Juan Carlos I, with gratitude and respect. An extraordinary reign is now part of our history with an extraordinary political legacy,” he said the 46-year-old, who at that time still had no beard and gray hair. It was not only his father’s achievements that were extraordinary, but also his adventures and scandals, as well as those of other members of the royal family.

Since then, Felipe has been a harsh critic. Juan Carlos’ reputation took a lot of damage in 2014. Spousal infidelities, nepotism in a major fraud scandal involving his son-in-law Inaki Urdangarin, elephant hunting in Botswana in 2012 in times of economic crisis with unemployment rampant. The aged monarch also appeared increasingly frail, mumbling his speeches and slurring his language. The result was his resignation in 2014, making way for his son. In the years that followed, however, King Felipe VI, who always tried to maintain dignity and transparency, was repeatedly confronted with his father’s delinquent behavior and had to make painful decisions.

Open rift with his father

The relationship between son and father, king and ex-king, did not improve, however, due to other scandals and revelations. When his own name came to the fore in 2020 in connection with a multimillion-euro financial scandal, the Bourbon king reached his limits, pulled the emergency brake and publicly broke with his then 82-year-old father. Felipe announced that he would completely renounce the inheritance to which he would later be entitled. But that wasn’t all. It also wrote off Juan Carlos’s salary as a former king of around 194,000 euros a year from the state budget. “The Crown must guarantee the dignity of the institution, safeguard its reputation and demonstrate integrity, honesty and transparency in its attitude,” the Tartuela Palace announced at the time, justifying this decision. Swiss and Spanish judicial authorities have launched investigations.

The suspicions were that Juan Carlos had allegedly received millions in bribes from Saudi Arabia in 2008. But was this a “gift” or was it to possibly “favor” the construction of a high-speed rail line from Medina to Mecca by a Spanish consortium? Particularly controversial was, according to a report by the British “Telegraph”, that both Felipe and Princess Leonor allegedly appeared as beneficiaries of an offshore foundation at the time, apparently without their knowledge. Therefore the king was forced to follow this path and clear his good name by making it clear that he would not accept money from his father’s inheritance.

Respect the “inevitable decision”

The result was to generate national recognition for his bold move. “In the few years of his tenure, he has demonstrated his firm commitment to the exemplary character of the supreme state institution,” the well-known newspaper “El Mundo” said, praising the “difficult but inevitable decision.” Juan Carlos narrowly escaped prosecution. Prosecutors dropped the investigation into financial wrongdoing either because he was protected by royal immunity until his abdication in 2014, because the offenses were statute-barred, or because he paid millions in tax debts at the last minute. This is not exactly a first class acquittal.

It was a deep fall for the man who for years was hailed as the savior of Spanish democracy because in 1981 he held a group of coup plotters to account with a decisive address to the nation. In the early years, Felipe kept a kind of safe distance from his father. Initially Juan Carlos left his country on August 4, 2020 with an unknown destination. He later appeared in Abu Dhabi. Two years later, when he revisited his homeland for the first time, there was only a brief one-on-one meeting with his son.

Different attitude to the monarchy

Much has been written and more said about Juan Carlos’ relationship with his wife Sofia. For the last time they were seen together at the funeral of the former King Constantine in Athens and Tatoi. But it appeared as if he was on regular duty. Queen Mother Sofia appears to spend a lot of time with her sister, former Queen Anne-Maria, while much has also been written about her relationship with her son’s wife, Letitia. All this is included in the context of literature that, with or without reason, feeds the material of all kinds of magazines and newspapers and burdens the future of the Spanish throne.

While calls for the end of the monarchy have grown louder since 2014, they have now become less intense thanks to the flawless reign of Felipe VI. According to polls, society is divided into two roughly equal camps. One wants to maintain hereditary monarchy, the other wants democracy. Older people and conservatives are more monarchical, while younger people and leftists are more democratic. If the monarchy survives, Infanta Leonor, 18, the eldest daughter of Felipe and Queen Letitia, will one day succeed her father. Then she will be the first Spanish queen since Isabella II, who reigned until 1868.

Editor: Irini Anastasopoulou