The King of Spain Juan Carlos has a salary of €292,752

Madrid (ACN).- The Spanish Royal Family has been hit in recent weeks by a fraud scandal allegedly involving the king’s son-in-law, Iñaki Urdangarin, married to Infanta Cristina. For that reason and for the first time since 1979 King Juan Carlos has decided to publish how it spends the public money that it receives every year. The monarch has an annual salary of €292,752 before tax. His son and heir to the throne, Prince Felipe, earns half the money that the head of state does, €146,375.50. Queen Sofia, Princess Letizia and the two daughters of the kings, Elena and Cristina, receive no more than €375,000 shared between the four of them. The transparency exercise of the Royal Family comes as the husband of Infanta Cristina is under investigation for fraud. Spain is being hit by a deep economic crisis and the government has urged its citizens to accept hard austerity measures.

According to the official figures published by the Royal Family on its website, King Juan Carlos of Spain earns €292,752 before tax. €140,519 is his own personal salary, while €152,233 is used to pay for the expenses of representing Spain. Prince Felipe has a salary of €146,375,50. €70,259 is his salary, and €76,117 is for representation expenses.

The Queen, the Princess and the Infantas only get paid for their “expenses of representation”, a quantity of money that “changes every year” and that in 2011 did not exceed €375,000. In total, the family salaries and expenses represent €813,908 or 9.65% of the total budget of the royal household.

The biggest expense for the Royal Family household is staff wages, with €4,039,176.69 spent on paying workers in 2011. This figure represents 47.89% of the total budget, however not all royal household workers are employed by the King of Spain. According to the data published on the website, only 18 people are paid directly by the Royal Family, including the Head of the House, the Secretary General, the Military Head, eight people from the Direction Department, two high ranking civil servants and five other employees. The government pays the majority of royal family employees, and services such as security are assumed by the State.

According to the official figures, the King has roughly €2.8 million for employee incentives. The second highest expense is for the costs of products and services that are needed regularly in the household, including furnishing, equipment or the organization of events. In total, €3,275,030.92 of public money is used for these costs, which represents 38.83% of the total budget.

The Royal Family stated on its website that it has prepared the budget following “austerity criteria” and by being as “efficient” as possible complementing its tasks with “the services offered by other departments from the public administration”. Similarly, the King of Spain chose the salary of his workers considering the general “increases, reductions or freezes” in the public service.