Spain passes new law to monitor royal family’s spending

By Alyssa McMurtry

OVIEDO, Spain (AA) - Spanish legislators approved a new decree on Tuesday set to boost transparency around the country’s royal family.

For the first time since Spain became a democracy, Spanish regulatory agencies will be able to audit and monitor the royal family’s spending.

At the same time, the new bill stipulates that senior officials in the monarchy will have to publish declarations of their assets annually.

The day before the decree was passed, Spain’s royal palace unveiled King Felipe VI’s personal wealth for the first time ever, valuing it at €2.6 million ($2.77 million).

That figure pales in comparison to the wealth of his father – King Emeritus Juan Carlos I, who is estimated to have as much as $2.3 billion. The former king’s ex-mistress Corinna zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn has even said she received a gift of more than $65 million in cash from the monarch in 2012.

Although Juan Carlos I no longer faces criminal charges in Spain, he has been living in the UAE since 2020 and has been cut off financially from Spain’s royal palace.

The new law in Spain aims to avoid future cases of corruption and to boost “transparency, modernization, integrity and efficiency in the royal palace … which means putting it at the same level as the rest of Spanish institutions,” Spain’s presidency minister, Felix Bolanos, told a Tuesday press conference.

“The Spanish monarchy will now be in line with the highest standards that apply to other royal families in Europe,” he added.

A 2021 poll found that support for the monarchy in Spain continued to fall. According to the survey, 39% of Spaniards said they would vote for a republic in a referendum compared to just 31% who would opt for a monarchy.

Nearly 73% said that royal scandals had harmed Spain’s international image.