Felipe VI and the Infantas: a week of whereabouts unknown

Felipe VI, Letizia and the Infantas: a week of whereabouts unknown

Since August 15, Spain's royal family has vanished from the institutional map. There is no crisis: it is the Spanish Royal Household's historic calendar. The official agenda was cut short in Palma in mid-month, after the King's meetings with authorities and the Copa del Rey sailing regatta, and after Letizia visited the Fundación Esment with Leonor and Sofía on August 6. From then on, private holidays and an euphemism the press repeats every year: whereabouts unknown.

The formula is as precise as it is opaque. The Government always knows where the King is; the public does not. That asymmetry of information is the core of the matter, more than the actual destination of the head of state. In August, institutional transparency is conspicuously absent, and that is accepted as normal.

Whereabouts unknown as a tradition

Spending the second half of August unaccounted for remains mandatory. The phrase, taken from routine coverage, sums up decades of holiday protocol. The Royal Family's security is never suspended, but their exact location is restricted to a minimal circle. For the historian it is routine; for the sceptical observer, an anomaly no other branch of the state allows itself.

The conspiracy buzz

On the fringes, the royal absence fuels speculation. Some suggest the family has been kidnapped to recalibrate their behaviour, or that the disappearance extends to other public figures, with mentions of Ione Belarra and the mysterious Number 1, absent these days from media and social networks. Without evidence, of course. But the mere fact that the Royal Household's silence creates these voids says more about opacity than about the conspiracy theorists.

The calendar is predictable, and so is the reaction. Augusts of absence, Septembers of explanations that never come. And the question remains: if there is nothing to hide, why is the whereabouts still a secret.