King Juan Carlos I of Spain announced his pending abdication from the throne on 2 June 2014. An organic law permitting the abdication, required by the 1978 Constitution in its article 57.5, was drafted by the government and approved by the Cortes Generales, and was formally signed on 18 June during a ceremony in the Hall of Columns of the Royal Palace of Madrid. The abdication became effective when it was published in the Official State Gazette at midnight on 19 June.
The Prince of Asturias, Felipe de Borbón y Grecia, succeeded the throne under the name Felipe VI on the abdication of his father. Juan Carlos retained the title of king emeritus with ceremonial functions entrusted to him by Felipe.
Background
In 2010, the medical team at the Royal Household detected a nodule in one of the King's lungs that could be cancerous. The news caused concern for the monarch's health at all levels of the country and raised the question of his continuity as head of state. In order to study the possibility of establishing a regency in those first months of the year, Juan Carlos himself and Felipe González met with then Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, and with President of the Congress of Deputies José Bono. Finally, on 8 May, surgeons at the Hospital Clínic de Barcelona removed the tumor. The subsequent biopsy determined that it was benign and the discussion on the matter of the succession was put on hold.
From 2011 onwards, the King's public image began to deteriorate significantly due to the Nóos corruption case, in which his daughter, Infanta Cristina de Borbón, was implicated.
In April 2012, Juan Carlos suffered an accidental injury during a secret elephant-hunting trip in Botswana, which led to him being flown back home in a special aircraft. The trip, which cost roughly €40,000, had been paid for privately by a businessman, Mohammed Eyad Kayali. It led to a political scandal in the midst of an economic crisis in Spain, with the risk premium at historic highs, and the country on the verge of being intervened. In addition, the incident brought to light the lucrative private business that the monarch had been conducting for years with the Saudi oligarchy.
Despite the scandal, the king continued to feel protected by the political class. Only Madrid socialist Tomás Gómez had spoken publicly about the possibility of his abdication.
Meanwhile, the king's health problems followed one after the other. Since the accident in Africa, Juan Carlos had undergone several surgeries to try to alleviate his mobility problems: the first one in November 2012 on his left hip joint; then in March 2013, a herniated disc repair surgery; and in September 2013, the second operation on his left hip.
The first person to learn of the king's concerns was Félix Sanz Roldán, director of the National Intelligence Centre (CNI) and a personal friend of the king. On 19 November 2012 and in the presence of Sanz Roldán, Juan Carlos informed Rafael Spottorno, the Private Secretary to the King, that he was considering the possibility of abdicating the throne. The king set a symbolic date—5 January 2014—on occasion of his 76th birthday, that is, still 15 months to go. Ten days later, Spottorno called his two predecessors, Fernando Almansa and Alberto Aza, to a meeting in which the four of them began to study the many legal and political issues, and also those of a personal nature for the king himself, related to the drafting of the future law. This is because the Constitution merely dictated, in article 57.5, that any doubt would have to be resolved by an organic law and approved by the Congress of Deputies by absolute majority. The Constitution did not specify whether the role of Congress was to authorize or to sanction, whether it would have to accept the decision made by the king, if he had to submit to the approval of Congress, or if, in short, the politicians could prevent him from abdicating. Among the personal issues, it was a matter of determining, among other things, if Juan Carlos could continue to reside or not in Zarzuela Palace.
In any case, the greatest fear of "the fantastic four" (as they came to be known colloquially around the palace) was that the political forces that were not in favor of the monarchy would "take advantage" of this law to "open the can of worms" about the form of the State. Given the doubts and the diversity of opinions among them, the king's men (among whom was also General Domingo Martínez Palomo as Head of the Planning and Coordination Cabinet) decided to ask for help from the former president of the Congress of Deputies, former minister of justice, and permanent advisor to the Council of State, Landelino Lavilla, one of the jurists who had contributed the most to establishing the legal foundation for the Transition. Lavilla studied the matter and reached a preliminary conclusion: the law should be very brief so as not to stir a debate in Congress.
During the deliberations, another thorny issue arose concerning dynastic rights within the royal family itself, as those in favor of Felipe being the undisputed successor faced a dilemma: on one hand, it was essential to develop and approve the organic law required by the Constitution, which would make unavoidable the pending reform of that same article 57 to abolish the prevalence of men over women in the succession to the throne. On the other hand, this issue would have to be addressed after Felipe became king because, otherwise, those who would be able to claim their rights would be the Infantas, Elena and Cristina. As if that were not enough, there was also the issue of immunity. Would it have to be resolved in the same organic law? In the end, it was decided that it was not convenient to risk the proclamation of the future king to shield the previous one, but that the priority was to get Parliament to approve the abdication without any problems and then, in a second organic law, "go for the immunity. Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy summarized it at the time as "a mess".
Throughout 2013, the small group continued to work on the matter, but Spottorno was not sure that His Majesty's decision was firm. He knew that, in spite of the disrepute into which his reign had fallen and the pressures to step aside, Juan Carlos maintained that "kings only leave when they die," that he, who had sacrificed his childhood and youth to one day be King of Spain, would "die with his crown on."
In spite of the precautions, in February 2013, a source with access to the king's inner circle disclosed to writer and journalist José Antonio Zarzalejos that the monarch, overwhelmed by his difficult family situation and by the damage done to his public reputation, as well as his own physical health, was considering renouncing the throne. To verify the information, Zarzalejos met with the head of the Royal Household, who did not deny it. Thus, on 22 February, he published an article in El Confidencial under the title El rey baraja ya la abdicación (The king is already considering abdication). Juan Carlos, annoyed at the indiscretion and despite being aware of its veracity, ordered these claims to be refuted.
Personal matters
Juan Carlos I, married to Sofía of Greece but separated from her for more than 40 years, was determined to divorce her and then marry his mistress at the time, Corinna Larsen—27 years his junior—but to keep the throne, as Edward VIII had tried to do in 1936 when he married American socialite Wallis Simpson. According to someone close to the king, the German-Danish businesswoman and Juan Carlos were preparing everything they needed to start a new life together. Included in that plan were the millionaire commission from the Arabs, the duplex in the Swiss Alps, and the luxury apartment in the exclusive London neighborhood of Belgravia.
In 2012, the king made available to Corinna, in the form of an "absolute gift", the 65 million euros he had received four years earlier. The money had been transferred from the Mirabaud banking group to an account in Gonet bank in the name of shell company Solare, based in Nassau, Bahamas. Larsen was the sole beneficiary of that account. The date on the donation document had been handwritten, which made one suspect that it had been drafted without that piece of information, "in anticipation of [needing] to submit it to the judicial authorities with the most convenient [date] for her defense if an investigation were to be launched. The beneficiary's lawyers argued that it was "an unsolicited gift" from Juan Carlos as a donation to her and her son, with whom he "had become attached."
Juan Carlos continued to search for a residence in which to live with Corinna, either in the ward of El Pardo (Madrid) or in Eaton Square (London). The Sultan of Oman, Qaboos bin Said Al Said, offered to serve as host. In 2014, just two weeks after the king's abdication, the sultan would gift Juan Carlos a penthouse in London valued at 62.7 million euros. Meanwhile, Mohammed VI of Morocco offered him a large estate near Marrakesh where he could build a palace. But CNI director Félix Sanz Roldán flatly refused: "The king of Spain cannot, under any circumstance, not even after having abdicated, spend long periods of time in non-Western countries with a woman who is not his wife." Thus, the King's longing started to fade due to the influence exerted by two of the people who had the most direct and open access to him: former President Felipe González and Sanz Roldán himself. It was within that environment of trust and openness with the monarch when a veteran advisor was heard telling the king: "Juan, tú eliges: o Corinna o Corona" (Juan, you choose: either Corinna or the Crown).
Ill-fated speech
The most reliable versions define Monday, 6 January 2014, as the point of no return towards the end of the reign of Juan Carlos I. As every year, the Pascua Militar event was being celebrated. Both the Army military leadership itself, as well as the media and the general public, harbored doubts about the real physical capabilities of the monarch to reliably assume the responsibilities of the highest state institution.
The formal ceremony started first thing in the morning. That year, the inspection of the troops had been excluded from the ceremony to prevent the king from experiencing any physical discomfort. The speech, however, was unavoidable. Thus, past one o'clock in the afternoon, Juan Carlos approached the lectern and, after the usual greetings, began his speech. The audience immediately realized the difficulties that the speaker was going through. The captain general of the Army, rather than delivering a speech, was "stumbling" over the written words. As journalist Álvaro de Cózar said, Juan Carlos "trips over the words; stutters on every period, on every comma." The head of the Press and Communications Office of the Royal Household, Javier Ayuso, was so distressed—because, in addition, the ceremony was being broadcast live on radio and television throughout the country—that he suffered a fainting fit and had to be discreetly removed from the room. Finally, after skipping entire paragraphs and "with pitiful embarrassment," Juan Carlos ended his speech.
The press, social media, and subsequent publications referred harshly to the distressing episode: "two agonizing minutes, a moment of national embarrassment;" "a dreadful moment of collective shame and chagrin." Moreover, the monarch projected a "pitiful" image before the army leadership, the group to which he felt most united by vocation and affection.
In the following days, it became known that the king, ignoring the warnings of his advisors about the transcendence and imminence of the event, had flown the previous week to London to celebrate his birthday with his "de facto family" (his lover, Corinna Larsen; his friend and Corinna's first husband Philip Adkins; and her son, Alexander), as well as with Mohammed Eyad Kayali, representative of the Royal House of Saudi Arabia in Spain and a close friend of the king. The party lasted until late on Sunday, the 5 January, when it was already completely dark in the English city. When the time came for the return flight home, the thick fog that covered London caused the take-off to be delayed until well into the early hours of Monday morning. Juan Carlos barely slept that night.
First months of 2014
Just one day after the speech, on Tuesday, 7 January 2014, the Infanta Cristina was charged by Judge José Castro Aragón, but it was not until late February when Spottorno received the order to implement his decision.