Tomorrow, for the first time in almost thirty years, he will not walk the road from his house to Zarzuela; The Official State Gazette (BOE) publishes this Monday the appointment of the diplomat Camilo Villarino as head of the King's Household and Jaime Alfonsín, the discreet man, will no longer share his daily life with Felipe VI.
When he arrived at Zarzuela he was 38 years old and had a brilliant career, first as a state lawyer and later as a member of the prestigious Uría Meléndez law firm. Felipe de Borbón, who was 27 years old, had finished his academic training and was preparing to perform his duties as heir to the Crown. Alfonsín was elected head of the Secretariat of the Prince of Asturias and began a not always smooth path in which both have traveled hand in hand.
Last Friday, Alfonsín accompanied the now King for the last time at an official event; It was on the 150th anniversary of the General Intervention of the State Administration, which is still emblematic, since if anything it has characterized Alfonsín's work, mainly since after the proclamation of Felipe VI he continued at his side as head of the King's House, has been his commitment to ensuring that the Head of State was, in all areas, an institution that, even though it was the first, was not immune to the controls and rigor to which every public function must be subject.
The last years of the reign of Juan Carlos I were not easy, but many of the mistakes that were made helped to avoid repeating them with the new king. Alfonsín's most important legacy is that of having given shape to the principles for the “renewed monarchy in a new time” that Felipe VI announced on the day of his proclamation, of which June 19 will mark ten years.
An internal code that involves greater control of the Zarzuela of the State Administration and, above all, the implementation of ethical principles that regulate the role of the different members of the royal family that prevent their involvement in tasks unrelated to representation. of the Crown. Like the commandments, the changes are summarized in two: transparency and exemplarity.
The symbiosis between the King and Jaime Alfonsín was based on the clear distribution of the functions of each one; in a seamless trust and in a mutual loyalty that is understood by the long previous history when Prince Philip had to play his role, always as a complement to that of his father, even in recent years in which the discrepancies stayed at home .
Hundreds of trips, thousands of events and hours shared between Felipe de Borbón and Jaime Alfonsín also forged an indestructible emotional bond. Being head of the King's House is not a job, it is an exclusive dedication in which, sometimes, you have to resolve matters of a family and even private nature, so that at the time of saying goodbye to everyday life, to the Former head of the King's House, this personal relationship weighs more on him than the fact of leaving the position, which more than a position has been, at times, a burden due to misunderstandings and loneliness when making certain decisions, always in the name , and for the good, of the King.
Jaime Alfonsín leaves the Zarzuela after leaving the immediate future of Princess Leonor on track and having managed to consolidate the figure of the King and the role of the Crown, overcoming the situation of self-exile of King Juan Carlos and the problems of institutional and personal deterioration which he starred in. With no pending judicial accounts, the relationship between the King and his father is now a strictly family matter.
Camilo Villarino takes office tomorrow as the new head of the King's Household and it will now be his turn to write a new chapter in the internal history of the Spanish monarchy.
