• Monarchies King Juan Carlos, in a wheelchair at the wedding of Hussein of Jordan
  • Royal House King Felipe and Queen Letizia, low at the wedding of Hussein of Jordan, where Sofia and Juan Carlos I will be
  • Wedding Como is Prince Hussein, heir of Jordan, who marries a clone architect of his mother, Rania of Jordan

The famous quote with which Ana Karenina starts – "All happy families resemble each other, but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way" – serves well to refer to the latent problems in the Spanish Royal Family that have regained prominence on the occasion of the marriage of the crown prince of Jordan.

The royal wedding of the year was attended by numerous members of the world's royalty. But it was surprising that Felipe VI and Doña Letizia did not attend on behalf of Spain, but Juan Carlos I and Sofia did, to whom, however, the word was not seen.

Prince Hussein of Jordan and his wife Rajwa, at the exit of the Amman Palace where they said 'I do' on Thursday. EFE

The erratic communication policy that Zarzuela follows in these cases, in addition to allowing all kinds of speculation, does not let us know in what capacity the Emeritus would have attended Jordan. And that's certainly not good for the image of our country. From the Palace they have shielded themselves in qualifying the wedding as a private event, as if the link of an heir were not a State and political event of the first magnitude. It is as much as trying to swallow with mill wheels to the citizenship saying that the wedding of Don Felipe and Doña Letizia in 2004 was a private affair of the dynasty. But, thus, Zarzuela has not reported anything and, only unofficially, admitted on the eve of the wedding that our Kings were not going to attend -without justifying why- adding that the Bourbons would represent Doña Sofía while the presence of Juan Carlos I was in a personal capacity.

One cannot but think that the decision of the King Emeritus to accept the invitation to the wedding of the grandson of his great friend the late King Hussein of Jordan, would have led our monarchs to decline attendance, to avoid a new uncomfortable photo. But, in any case, and how can it be otherwise, in these important international events, as also happened in London at the funeral of Isabel II, Juan Carlos I is treated as the king he continues to be and according to the appropriate protocol for who has been almost 40 years Head of State of Spain. And it is that the Emeritus is still one of the six members of our Royal Family. It is misleading to pretend that he does not represent her at official events he attends such as the Hashemite royal wedding.

As we know from what the governments of other parliamentary monarchies such as Japan have reported, the Jordanian Court would have sent invitations to the dynasties addressed preferentially to their crown princes, as it was appropriate for the marriage of a successor to the throne. And it's what almost all royal families have done. But in cases where the heirs are too young or even wanted to enhance the representation in deference to the Hashemite Crown, it has been the holders of the institution who have traveled to Amman, including the kings of the Netherlands with the crown princess, the king of the Belgians with his successor, the kings of Malaysia, also with the crown prince of their sultanate, or the queen of Bhutan. Resting the representation in some Emeritus, as has happened in the Spanish or Qatari case, certainly does not seem the most orthodox. And, beyond what the protocol dictates, aesthetically it conveys the image that the wedding of the heir of a Monarchy that for decades has had enormous ties with our dynasty is missing.

The doubts of this episode are also fueled by the fact that just on the day of the wedding neither the King nor the Consort had any official act. The fact that the agenda was clear made speculation until the last moment with his attendance at the link that has brought together dozens of members of the Götha.

But returning to Ana Karenina, the attendance of Don Juan Carlos and Doña Sofía together has also proved inexplicable because neither made the slightest attempt on Thursday to behave like two well-connected people. On the contrary, the images captured by the television cameras showed a coldness and a distancing that radiated extraordinary tension. There were too many minutes in which they did not speak toeach other, despite being seated together, and their gazes always in opposite directions were an eloquent poem.

The Jordanian wedding leaves us, finally, one of those images that refer to what for many years has been the great nightmare of Don Juan Carlos: to end, as in his day his mother Doña María, in a wheelchair. The hip and mobility problems of the Emeritus are increasing, his physical deterioration is unstoppable, and on Thursday he surprised the scene in which he needed to be taken in a wheelchair to be able to advance through the long corridors and gardens of the Zahran Palace to the temple where the marriage of Prince Hussein and the architect of Saudi origin Rajwa Al Saif was officiated. . At other times, the Emeritus did walk, always supported by his assistant, Vicente García-Mochales.

  • Royal House
  • Jordan
  • Juan Carlos I
  • Queen Sofia
  • Philip VI
  • Queen Letizia

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