This week has been a new test for the parliamentary monarchy system that Spain adopted with the approval of the Constitution. The declassification of documents related to the attempted coup d'état of February 23 has generated several debates, especially regarding the possible return of the emeritus king and the conditions under which it could take place. In the face of the controversy, the royal household has been quick to react. From the Zarzuela Palace, it has been made very clear that Juan Carlos I can return to reside in Spanish territory whenever he decides. But the message contained a warning. If he does, he must be aware that this step implies that "he would have to reestablish his tax residence in Spain". This may be the decisive factor preventing his return. The investigations by the Prosecutor's Office into the emeritus king, which came to nothing, should not imply that once he is settled here again, a kind of guarantee of confidentiality and disinterest regarding his finances and assets will operate. Under these conditions, it is unlikely that Juan Carlos I will abandon the possibility he now has of coming and going as he pleases and settling here again peacefully, which in his case means being able to dispense with the public treasury's attentions that citizens usually receive.

On the Spanish right, it is taken for granted that the Spanish government is attempting to "colonize" all state institutions, including the royal household. A theory circulating widely, particularly among the far right, is that the monarch has been kidnapped by Pedro Sánchez's Spanish executive, which dictates his every move. Another version, supported by the People's Party (PP), suggests that the Moncloa Palace (the Prime Minister's office) is trying to influence all areas of Felipe VI's actions, but that this has not been successful due to alleged resistance from the Zarzuela Palace (the Royal Palace). The PP continues to staunchly defend the monarch—despite some contradictions—but Vox has distanced itself from the king and only defends the Crown as an institution, according to several sources consulted by ARA.

King Felipe VI, in his annual speech from this palace that infuriates so many, made "an appeal" to preserve"democratic coexistence"in the face of "extremism, radicalism, and populism." Felipe's voice, by the way, is high-pitched and delicate, like Franco's. Very different from Juan Carlos's nasal, snoring tone. If the monarchy weren't a bastion of machismo, this speech would be given by the Queen, who is far more adept at reading the teleprompter as if she weren't, and has a pleasant and, above all, convincing voice.

We read in the Readings That King Felipe "has interrupted his private vacation with his wife and daughters for important reasons." The "private vacation" thing has always seemed extraordinary to me, because it means they're taking it "publicly," that it's just a show. Pretending to "take a vacation," sailing in a boat, dressing in local white, going to dinner somewhere neither expensive nor cheap, seems, in itself, wonderful. But on top of that, they're taking other vacations, which are "private." And the important reason why Felipe has interrupted his private vacations is the fires. It seems that the monarch "has been in contact" with some regional presidents "to find out the degree of damage caused by the various fires that are terribly ravaging" his kingdom. It seems like a gesture of monarchical responsibility, but that's not the only way I see it.

Juan Carlos I had become almost a problem of the past for the Moncloa and the Zarzuela Palaces, but his reappearance as a triple plaintiff puts him back in the spotlight. Furthermore, he sets the stage for the year that commemorates the 50th anniversary of Franco's death and the beginning of his mandate as head of state.

These are months of important events that will shape Infanta Sofía's future. In two weeks, she will come of age, a month later she will graduate from UWC Atlantic College—an international baccalaureate school located in South Wales—and shortly after that, she will have to decide how she wants to direct her academic life starting in September. Until now, Felipe and Letizia's two daughters have followed a similar academic path: attending the same schools and completing the same bachelor's degrees. But now, everything suggests that for the first time, their paths will begin to diverge.

The ruling of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on Thursday, which supports the possibility that the Constitutional Court may veto, in certain cases, the processing of motions in favour of the right to self-determination or against the monarchy, has been a bucket of cold water, and there will be time to analyse it. In this article I focus on another issue relating to the ECHR. In the framework of the negotiations between Junts per Catalunya and Pedro Sánchez's executive in Switzerland, on Monday it became known that the Spanish Council of Ministers would approve Spain's accession to Protocol 16 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR; Treaty No. 214) immediately. This protocol, which entered into force in August 2018, introduced a significant innovation in the judicial system for the protection of human rights in Europe. Specifically, it allows the highest instances of state courts designated by the Member States to request an advisory opinion from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on questions of principle related to the interpretation or application of the rights and freedoms defined in the Convention. Applications can be made in the context of cases pending before the competent domestic courts, and the ECtHR has the power to accept the application and issue an opinion which is formally non-binding. Although the innovation is significant, it is not comparable with the impact of the preliminary ruling procedure in European Union (EU) law due to the different legal structure of the Protocol No. 16 procedure compared to the preliminary ruling procedure at the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) – the so-called preliminary question, which is binding because the aim is to ensure the supremacy of EU law.

They say that with sin comes penance. This is what William of Orange, King of the Netherlands, must be thinking right now, as he has been holding his breath since September until what he feared most finally happened. According to the newspaper NRC, the monarch would have interceded to find a good job for his sister-in-law and, on top of that, that job would have been found in the public administration. A full-blown ethical disaster for someone who, as we well know here thanks to that mythical Christmas message from King Juan Carlos, must be exemplary.

Thirty-eight years after the media scandal of Felipe's alleged love affair at a carnival in Salvador, history has repeated itself. After a journey of several days, the ship in which Leonor de Borbón sails has arrived this week in the Brazilian town. As usual, the young people from the naval school of Marín have taken a day off and have gone to see the preparations of the city for the carnival. Between drinks, music and people, a paparazzi claims that he saw the heiress getting involved with a boy from her company, a media uproar that Felipe VI already experienced when he was in the same city and at the same age as his daughter.

The monarchy, with the support of the PSOE and the opposition of the triple right, wanted to turn this week the fortieth anniversary of the coup d'état of 23-F into a way of vindicating the discredited figure of the king emeritus. According to the official story, the actions of Juan Carlos I put a stop to the tejerazo and saved the then young Spanish democracy. But the attempt has remained just that, an attempt. Not in vain, Felipe VI's father has long since fallen into disgrace on his own merits. He can no longer be saved by the sweetened epic of that distant episode. The emeritus has lost the popular support that for years surrounded him and made him an institutional pillar of the State; now the monarchy cannot find a way to overcome the crisis of legitimacy in which it is immersed. For years Juan Carlos I has been squandering the credit he had earned during the Transition, to the point that the accumulation of scandals led him to have to abdicate and finally go into exile in a shameful escape to Abu Dhabi, where he still resides and from where, thanks to the passivity of the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor and the Tax Agency, he is manoeuvring to escape his tax crimes. If last December he paid the Treasury up to 678,393 euros to avoid a tax investigation into the opaque cards, this Thursday it has been learned that he has made a new payment of 4.3 million to avoid what would be a fraud in the Treasury of 120,000 euros. It is clear the favored treatment that he continues to receive. And that makes any restoration impossible, not even moral.