Juan Carlos I in a file image.
06/05/2025
Escriptor
2 min

The everlasting Spain, identical to itself, that ofSpain and I are like that, madam. (phrase often attributed to Ortega y Gasset, but which actually comes from a play by Eduardo Marquina with a significant title, The sun has set in Flanders) was demonstrated last Monday, twice: on the one hand, with the appearance of former Spanish Vice President Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría, and on the other, in the Supreme Court's rejection of the complaint against King Juan Carlos for five tax offenses, filed months ago by a group of former prosecutors and toys.

The inadmissibility of the complaint was the responsibility of Judge Marchena, it can be assumed that with great pleasure For his part, he has, in fact, let it float for several months in judicial limbo, awaiting a response, and then killed it, as if it were a high ball. The arguments put forward to justify the decision are the same as always: either there are no crimes, or they have expired, or the fact that Juan Carlos made some payments to the Treasury is already proof to the Supreme Court of his desire to regularize the situation, despite the fact that the payments were made late. We see the state machinery at the service of covering up a head of state who is, at the very least, a fraudster, fled to another country without democracy or human rights, where he continues to live a life of extreme luxury at the expense of Spanish taxpayers (those of us who pay the taxes he pays). It's funny, because the same people who still applaud Juan Carlos in politics and public life are overly concerned about Spain's image in the world when, according to them, it is being corroded by the perfidious Pedro Sánchez or the insatiable Catalan separatists.

Since we mentioned the subject, the Catalunya operation is one of the recent episodes that has most damaged the image of Spain, to the point of having made it lose for a time the category of full democracy in the ranking of countries of The Economist (the others are the bullying of defenseless citizens during a referendum, the arbitrary imprisonment—by Judge Marchena himself—of pro-independence political and civil leaders, and the spying on politicians and civil leaders with Pegasus). She has only repeated that she knew nothing about the events and has refrained from acting offended, like Alicia Sánchez Camacho, Cristóbal Montoro, or her former leader, Mariano Rajoy. The commission on Operation Catalunya has so far only contributed something, which was already known: invariably in parades of conveniently forgetful scoundrels.

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