The current head of the General Air Command of the Army, General Emilio Gracia Cirugeda, will be the new head of the Military Room of the House of the King, replacing Admiral Juan Ruiz Casas, who goes to reserve to meet the permanence limit set the law for senior managers. Gracia Cirugeda, 61 years old and a native of Zaragoza, was a field assistant when Felipe VI was a prince and has a long history in the Air Force.
The change will become effective on December 10, when the Official State Gazette (BOE) publishes the decree of dismissal of Ruiz Casas and the appointment of his replacement, military sources have informed EFE .
Felipe VI maintains the unwritten rule of rotating his military officer among the three armies, after the last two have been from the Navy and the Land. The Constitution reserves to the monarch the power to appoint “freely” the civilian and military members of his team.
The substitution coincides in time with the controversy generated by the letter sent to the King by 73 retired senior officers of the Army in which they assure that “national cohesion” is at serious risk with the current “social-communist government, supported by filoetarras and independentistas “. The letter was joined by a chat by a group of soldiers who are no longer in the Army in which they spoke of “pronouncements” and “shooting 26 million Spaniards“, which the Ministry of Defense has put in the hands of the Prosecutor’s Office in case it could be constitutive of a crime.
Substitution established by law
From the Royal House they emphasize it the change of the head of the Military Quarter bears no relation to this controversy and is due solely to the fact that it must go to the reserve upon fulfilling the maximum period of ten years that the legislation sets for those who have the rank of general officer.
In the case of Ruiz Casas, 62, he was promoted to rear admiral on December 10, 2010 at the proposal of the then Defense Minister Carme Chacón. Promoted to admiral three years ago, he assumed the leadership of the Fourth Military on July 23, 2014, just a month after the proclamation of Felipe VI, replacing the general Antonio de la Corte, who also went to the reserve after to hold office for four years.
The Military Room is one of the three legs on which the structure of the King’s House is based, together with the Headquarters and the General Secretariat, and that make up the senior management staff of the institution. Its main task is to prepare the military activities of the members of the Royal Family and to serve as liaison with the Ministry of Defense. The Royal Guard depends on him, the unit that escorts the king and the Royal Family, as well as foreign heads of state . He is also in charge of the team of field assistants, made up of nine soldiers from the three Armies and the Civil Guard that permanently assists the monarch and also the queen in their official activities.
