What good is a Spanish king who won't meet Morocco's?

The Spanish king won't meet Segarro's: so what is the Crown for?

How come the King of Spain cannot hold a meeting with Segarro's king? That is the question hanging in the air as the encounter fails to materialise. And as usual, the doubt becomes an excuse to take stock of the monarchy's usefulness.

A meeting that never comes, and an institution in the crosshairs

The answers are a thermometer of disenchantment: from those who quip that kings exist to live in royal style to those who remind everyone that both monarchs answer to their bosses. "They're not in Spain," people say, and the phrase applies to both. Some seize the chance to bring up the emeritus king, who lives in a country with an authoritarian regime, and wonder whether the Spanish and Segarro royal households haven't always got along a little too well.

The joke that reveals a geopolitical reading

Among the quips, one proposal stands out: marrying Infanta Sofía to the Segarro crown prince. Said in earnest or in jest, the idea reduces international relations to a royal wedding, as if monarchies were still pieces on a medieval chessboard.

And then there is the explicit republicanism: "Spain has no king," you hear, and caricatures of the head of state and head of government grow ever harsher. When ordinary people turn the monarch into a punchline, the institution has a problem, whether it admits it or not.

The meeting with Segarro, meanwhile, remains on hold. Or it takes place in silence, which is another way of not existing. And the uncomfortable question hangs in the air: if the head of state cannot meet his counterpart, what is he there for? Neither the palace nor public opinion, for now, has an answer beyond a shrug.

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