By Doreen Carvajal And Raphael Minder
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Allison Joyce/Getty Images
King Juan Carlos I of Spain, at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York recently,
has come under increasing scrutiny at home.
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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 .
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 1.79 billion euros (or $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 duringa 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 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?”
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.
In this “annus horribilis” for the Spanish royal family,
the king has kept himself at arm’s length from an influence-peddling case aimed
at his son-in-law, Iñaki Urdangarín, who is accused of using a nonprofit
foundation to embezzle public money from sporting events and of exploiting his
royal background to skip standard bidding procedures.
On his travels, the monarch can accept gifts in the name of
the Spanish government, but there is no public list of the presents. Over the
years, he has received yachts, an island home and luxury autos to add to his
large collection of cars, provoking caustic Twitter messages like, “The
Spaniards in slippers and the king with 70 cars.”
In the midst of Spain ’s economic crisis, the king and his son, Crown Prince
Felipe, agreed to a 7 percent cut in the royal budget.
But some opposition lawmakers see Spain ’s downturn as further reason to challenge the monarchy.
“There is absolutely zero control on the activities of the
king and his household,” said Joan Tardà, a national lawmaker from Esquerra
Republicana, a Catalan party that wants Spain to hold a referendum on the monarchy.
Polls taken after the king’s hunting trip accident in April
showed that Spaniards forgave him, but most yearned for more transparency.
Supporters of and advisers to the royal palace describe the
king as an irreplaceable resource with unmatched relationships with world
leaders. They credit his skills in smoothing tensions between Spain ’s former Socialist government and the George W. Bush
administration and helping to resolve disputes in Latin America .
“From a corporate point of view, he is Spain ’s No. 1 ambassador,” said César Alierta, chairman of
Telefónica, the Spanish telecommunications giant.
Some allies also consider him a crucial resource in
advancing Spain ’s economic interests outside the country. The Saudi high-speed train is their case in point.
“Without the king, this contract would not have gone
ahead,” said a former Spanish foreign minister, Miguel Ángel Moratinos. “This
kind of contract comes down to a personal decision by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia .”
The Botswana trip was subsidized by Mr. Kayali, who also serves as a
key adviser to Prince Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, the crown prince in Saudi Arabia who played a role in awarding the Saudi train contract.
Mr. Kayali declined to comment.
Along on the expedition was a German princess, Corinna zu
Sayn-Wittgenstein, 47, and her young son and former husband. The Spanish gossip
press labeled her the monarch’s longtime mistress — something she denied in an
interview. She also denied that she had somehow benefited from her association
with Juan Carlos through a now defunct Spanish-Saudi investment fund.
Ms. Sayn-Wittgenstein called the king a family friend and
described her role on other royal trips as a strategic adviser to the Spanish
government through her company, Apollonia Associates, which offers advice about high-end Middle East
deals.
“The king is a national treasure,” she said. “When he walks
into a room, he radiates warmth and charisma and he connects with everybody.
Nobody remains untouched by it.”
