From Vanity Fair, 6 pages article: Should the king abdicate, the scandals, infantas, Felipe's marriage.
For decades, Spain’s Juan Carlos was one of the most powerful and popular monarchs in Europe, hailed as the father of his country’s democracy. Today, he faces a crisis: his younger daughter and her husband enmeshed in a corruption scandal; his marriage to Queen Sofía on rocky terrain; his relationship with a glamorous German businesswoman under scrutiny. Might the 75-year-old king abdicate in favor of his son, Crown Prince Felipe, who shocked traditionalists by wedding an anchorwoman? Bob Colacello gets the latest from the inner circle in Madrid—and also hears from the lady in question.
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I personally believed that it would have been better if Prince Felipe had married a royal princess,” said Ramón Pérez-Maura, the assistant editor of ABC, the monarchist daily. “Having said that, and having seen Princess Letizia act over the last nine years, I think she’s done a fantastic job. She’s helped Prince Felipe meet groups of society he wasn’t familiar with, such as people in the media. And I like the fact that when they got married they started their honeymoon trip around Spain in a car, which nobody knew they were going to do. That was something that came out of her. And that’s brilliant.”
“The most important thing about Felipe and Letizia is that they are not linked in any way to any kind of corruption,” said Laurence Debray. “They were ambitious enough to stay away from it all. They cut off any relationship they had with Iñaki and Cristina. Felipe’s a good family man. He doesn’t have mistresses. He doesn’t go hunting. He’s very modern. The younger generation doesn’t care about Franco, or the Civil War, or the coup. For them, most of the royal family seems corrupt. They don’t work, and they have plenty of money. So Felipe is looking better every day, and so is Letizia.”
The Reign in Spain is Mainly on the Wane King Juan Carlos’s Controversies Vanity Fair
