Esquerra also requires, along with seven other parliamentary groups, that Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez clarify the role of the Spanish government regarding the alleged corruption of the Royal House of Borbón

The Esquerra Group, together with Catalan centre-right Junts per Catalunya, leftist CUP, and conservative PDeCAT, as well as Basque EH Bildu, Galician BNG, Valencian Compromís and Spanish leftist Más País, requested on Thursday the appearance before the Spanish Congress of King Felipe VI to give explanations on the numerous scandals that are tainting the Royal Household, including the regularization of tax liabilities of 4 million euros by former King Juan Carlos de Borbón and the vaccination in the United Arab Emirates of the current king’s sisters. These political forces are also calling for the appearance in the lower house of Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez to clarify the role of the executive in the alleged corruption of the monarchy.

The alleged receipt of commissions by the former king in connection with the contract for the construction of the Mecca–Medina high-speed railway, of up to 100 million euros deposited by the Saudi monarchy in an account in the Bahamas; million-euro loans and gifts to his mistress, Corinna zu Sayn-Wittgenstein, who has denounced a campaign of harassment and threats; numerous transfers related to Juan Carlos I through banks to tax havens and offshore accounts revealed to Swiss public prosecutor Yves Bertossa by several defendants; the assignation of Felipe VI himself as a beneficiary of this money of dubious origin and legality; or the flight of the former king to the United Arab Emirates with publicly paid staff in attendance, are some of the scandals that are plaguing the Royal Household and for which the Esquerra Group is demanding explanations from the head of state in Parliament.

“The regularization of 4 million euros is another episode of this putrefaction of the Royal House, of an entire family,” said Esquerra’s spokesman in Madrid, Gabriel Rufián. “It wasn’t just Urdangarín—the king’s brother-in-law convicted of embezzlement—it’s not just Juan Carlos, and surely in the future, it won’t be just Felipe. It’s a whole network, a machine, a company of bad practice and corruption of 40 years taking advantage of its family name,” he pointed out.

There is a whole republican outlook that will go on requiring explanations until the PSOE ceases to go scot-free for covering up these obscenities

Gabriel Rufian Esquerra’s spokesman in Madrid

The seven political forces that have joined together to demand explanations from Felipe VI are also demanding that Pedro Sánchez appear before the Spanish Congress after the PSOE has repeatedly vetoed all attempts to set up a parliamentary commission of inquiry into the scandals of the monarchy. On the table, the role of the Spanish government in the flight of the former king and the public money allocated to his gilded exile, as well as the role of the Tax Agency in the tax regularization, or the lack of interest of the Prosecutor’s Office in taking legal action against the monarch.

“There is a whole republican outlook that will go on requiring explanations until the PSOE ceases to go scot-free for covering up these obscenities,” said Rufián, who denounced that these scandals came together with “a democratic regression” in Spain: “We have seen how a journalist has been fired for labelling truths on public television, how rappers go to jail for telling truths in their songs, and how there is a whole media machine that protects these people,” he summed up.