The government is once again failing to comply with its legal obligation to account for the money spent on the defense of a member of Spain’s Bourbon family. In this case, it was the Ministry of the Interior that ignored the Transparency Council’s order to publish the cost of the security deployment related to the visit of Juan Carlos de Borbón to Spain in 2022 and which had the coastal city of Sanxenso. As his main destination (Pontevedra), however, he also included a trip to Madrid to spend a few hours with his family in Zarzuela before returning to exile in Abu Dhabi.
That’s it Maldita.es promoted it, the media that launched the public information request procedure that led to the order, which the Ministry of Internal Affairs chose not to comply with, as has happened with similar requests in the past. Specifically, the Transparency Council ordered the Ministry of Internal Affairs to report “within a maximum of 10 working days” and, specifically, detail “distributed expenses, including accommodation, travel, meals, diet and other expenses. Each person who creates a device,” according to the decree.
But the interior did not fulfill the order. Sources in the department, consulted by elDiario.es, claim that it is not up to them and that they have referred to the office of the president of the government, which, they claim, deals with issues related to transparency and the royal house. dependent
The government’s decision to ignore transparency orders affecting the royal household. In fact, this is a common occurrence and only judicial procedure can compel the executive to comply with the Council’s decree.
Last summer, for example, the Interior Ministry also chose not to comply with the Transparency Council, which demanded that it disclose the number of troops carrying out their duties in Zarzuela. He did so on the grounds that it was reserved and prejudicial to “public safety,” just as the reason now given.
The department, headed by Fernando Grande-Marlasca, accepted a 1986 ministerial agreement that declared security plans secret, but the Transparency Council has already found in other cases that reporting the costs does not put at risk the officials who do the work, nor does it disclose it. Protection of the king or his relatives.
The government collects the resolutions of the Transparency and Good Governance Council to detail such things as the number of agents available to the Casa del Rey, the budget spent on that item or the staff accompanying the king emeritus and the cost of per diems that accompany it. , according to several resolutions analyzed by this paper. All this data remains secret, even though the king’s every move is behind an important testimony.
The problem does not remain only inside. The General Secretariat of the President, now headed by Francisco Martín Aguirre, has used an identical explanation in the past to deny the information: that it is a reserved matter and that it could “compromise both the security of the people under protection and the agents responsible for it.
The secrecy extends even to the forced exile of Juan Carlo de Borbon in Abu Dhabi. Interior did not specify the number of retinues accompanying Juan Carlos I during his stay in Abu Dhabi. elDiario.es revealed that he has three camera assistants, whose salaries and allowances are paid by the national heritage, but the security personnel in their service are unknown.
Source: El Diario
