Fa un parell de dies vàrem publicar un apunt amb un seguit d'articles sobre el Juanca, les opinions del setmanari Bloomberg, les contraopinions de l'economista del Partit Republicà dels EUA resident a Madrid Fernando Betancor i altres comentaris. Varem citar aquest article del 2012 però no el varem publicar. I ho fem ara.
Chastened King Seeks Redemption, for Spain and His
Monarchy
By Doreen Carvajal And
Raphael Minder
Published: September 28, 2012
Madrid —
With Spain mired in an economic slump, many Spaniards are
questioning their king, long revered for his role in bringing democracy to the
nation but now being scrutinized for his deluxe lifestyle and opaque fortune.
Pool photo by Paco Campos
After Juan Carlos
broke his hip while elephant hunting in Botswana this spring, austerity-minded
Spaniards were outraged.
An accident this spring, when the king broke his
hip while elephant hunting in Botswana, exposed a rarefied world of business
contacts and set off an unusual public outcry over why the Spanish monarch,
Juan Carlos I, was off on a pricey African safari during a time of national
hardship.
The episode led to an unusual royal apology, but
the collateral damage has left the king, 74, recalibrating his monarchy. He has
stepped up his public appearances, embracing his role as an international
business booster and conciliator amid rising fury over government-imposed
austerity measures intended to help shore up confidence in the country’s
finances.
“The monarchy will continue as long as the people
want a monarchy,” the king said on a swing through New York last week, part of
a palace strategy to meet with top opinion makers to help promote confidence in
Spain.
Europe’s economic crisis has politicians and
struggling taxpayers from Belgium to England openly weighing the costs of
subsidizing royals. Unlike other European monarchs, Juan Carlos came to the
throne after the death of the dictator Gen. Francisco Franco in 1975 with
virtually nothing, and has worked hard to generate his own fortune beyond the
annual 8.3 million euro budget, or $10.7 million, bestowed on the palace by the
Spanish government.
The king is widely valued in business circles for
acting as a sometime deal maker and economic ambassador for his nation, but how
he has amassed his substantial personal wealth remains secret. The Spanish
royal family’s wealth has been estimated at up to $2.3 billion, a sum that
supporters contend was inflated by the inclusion of government properties.
To promote Spain’s businesses and help repair his
image, Juan Carlos took the controls this month of a cutting-edge NH90
helicopter during a visit
to a Eurocopter manufacturing
plant in Albacete. On Thursday, he inaugurated a new Barcelona container
terminal.
It is all part of his campaign to advance “Brand Spain,”
as the king put it in response to written questions, another palace step to
demonstrate openness. His message for Spanish business, he added, is
straightforward: “Export, export and export.”
Juan Carlos’s
peripatetic role as a business diplomat and deal maker was brought into the
limelight after the safari, which was subsidized and organized by Mohamed Eyad
Kayali, a Syrian construction magnate.
The two longtime
friends had worked together on a $9.9 billion bullet-train contract that the
monarch helped broker last autumn for a Spanish consortium in Saudi Arabia.
Leveraging his friendship with the Saudi king and other royals, Juan Carlos
outmaneuvered a French bid.
Supporters and advisers to the palace insist the king does not
receive commissions on the deals he mediates or promotes.
“They have tried to be more transparent by
revealing their annual budget,” said Herman Matthijs, a finance professor at
the University of Brussels, who analyzes government spending on Europe’s
royalty and unsuccessfully sought information about the king’s personal
fortune. “I
suppose at least that he is a millionaire, but the question is: Is he a
billionaire? What is their real wealth?”
Spain lived without a king for 38 years after the
Spanish Bourbon family was exiled in 1931 and their properties expropriated. Franco, who
operated as a dictator from the end of the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s to
his death, handpicked the king in 1969 to succeed him.
The king’s authority is limited by the Spanish
Constitution to mostly ceremonial powers — essentially a nonruling monarch.
Before his accession to the throne, the king was
aided by financial advisers who created a subscription campaign when he got married to
help build a financial cushion. During that period, the future king “became obsessed with
building up a personal fortune,” said José García Abad, the author
of two books about the monarch.
Joan
A. Forès
Reflexions
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