The goodbye of Espinosa de los Monteros: scourge of the "caviar ultra-right" to the "dirty and underdressed" left
In October 2010, Iván Espinosa de los Monteros y de Simón was about to turn 40 and did not hesitate to pose for this newspaper with an impeccable suit and the beard that still accompanies him along with his father, Carlos. At that time, he was only the businessman son of the four Marquis of Valtierra, a title granted by Alfonso XIII to his grandfather in 1907 for his military and diplomatic collaboration.. This “man, Spanish, Christian, straight, married, father of a large family, patriot, capitalist, conservative, bullfighting and Madridista” showed an interest in politics but it was not yet predicted that, nine years later, he would become a founder and spokesperson in the Vox Congress of Deputies, a newly created party as a scourge of the left and separatism, and even the Popular Party, defender of the unity of Spain against nationalisms “incompatible with democracy.”
With a family name, his father had carved out an impressive business career linked to power. He went from commercial attaché in Chicago in the throes of Francoism to president of Iberia with Felipe González, director of Inditex, president of Mercedes Benz-Spain and, as a last position, high commissioner of the Government of Mariano Rajoy for the Spain Brand until 2018. At that time, Iván, one of his five children, had already approached politics through a training that stood out in 2013 and had not yet achieved any institutional representation.. Its visible head was the popular leader Alejo Vidal-Quadras.
Iván and Carlos Espinosa de los Monteros, in a report for El Mundo Magazine in 2010. BEGOÑA RIVAS
His working life had long been spent straddling the United States. He graduated in Economics and Business from ICADE, with an MBA from Northwestern University in Illinois (USA), speaks three languages and held positions of responsibility in various auditing, venture capital management and real estate companies in Spain and New York and Miami, where he did not always have good fortune, and had real estate investments in Warsaw and Madrid. It was in the capital where he successfully opted for the conversion of industrial spaces into luxury homes, a task he shared with his wife, Rocío Monasterio, an architect with Cuban and anti-Castro origins whom he had met on his American journey.. They were married on May 15, 2001, the day of San Isidro, in Esclavas de la Moraleja with the blessing of Pope John Paul II and a celebration at the exclusive Real Club Puerta de Hierro. Together they had four children and together they launched themselves to promote Vox wrapped in their conservative, Catholic, monarchical and economically ultra-liberal values.
Espinosa and Monasterio, on their wedding day in 2001. Departure from the PP, “like drugs”
It was in January 2012, when he personally met Santiago Abascal at a dinner for Intereconomía gatherings a few days before the Basque appeared at the National Court to testify about the harassment of nationalists he suffered when he was elected PP councilor in Llodio (Álava).. Espinosa de los Monteros, in what can be interpreted as his first public political gesture, accompanied him before the court. By then, he had already become disenchanted with the Popular Party, from scandal to scandal over corruption. “I was a PP voter, but you get out of everything, like drugs,” he confessed in 2019.
Between 2014 and 2016 he was secretary general of Vox, he became deputy secretary general for international relations and in 2019 he obtained a seat that made him the visible parliamentary face of the party. At the time, his wife took the reins of the party in the Community of Madrid. For Joan Baldoví, a Compromís deputy, both became the perfect example of the “caviar ultra-right”.
Rugby, Nadal and Real Madrid
As a good soccer fan -although he played rugby, loves tennis and suffers with Rafa Nadal-, his style has been an attacking game, assuming that the rival could catch him in a counter. He has had scuffles in Congress with the nationalist parties, “who want to end the unity of Spain”, with Podemos, “enemies of Spain, for any policy that came from the purple, especially those related to democratic memory, the violence of gender or the Trans Law, and with the PSOE, among others, for immigration policy, “because there is no money but there is money to support 'menas' throughout Spain and the stay of illegal immigrants in the Canary Islands”. The last of her controversial phrases was addressed to the vice president and leader of Sumar, Yolanda Díaz, during the electoral debate prior to 23J, referring to her physical appearance: “A very sweet, very nice leader, with a very attractive tone, who has improved his personal appearance a lot and that's all very well”.
Espinosa and Abascal, in an act in defense of the Constitution.
The left. In a broad sense, he has been objective and defined her in an interview in Miami 2019 as “dirty, underdressed and with a ponytail” and, in his opinion, “we should analyze whether they have the right to be in the political game”. But neither was Ciudadanos spared, whom he defined as “neat, well-dressed, shaven left, pretty girls, young, good-looking and the right is seduced by that aspect.”
In response to the verbal, and sometimes radical, lashes of the former Vox leader, his ancestors, soldiers close to Franco, present at the meeting between the Spanish dictator and Adolf Hitler in Hendaye, were aired. He was the brother of his great-grandfather, Eugenio Espinosa de los Monteros, who was also the Spanish ambassador to Nazi Berlin between 1940 and 1941.
Controversial real estate deals
However, the real controversy has not only surrounded him because of his words, but also because of judicial matters carried out with the real estate activity of Espinosa de los Monteros and his wife.
In 2019, the actor and comedian Arturo Valls sued Rocío Monasterio after hiring her in 2005 to reform a commercial premises in the Lavapiés neighborhood of Madrid destined to become his home. The works were carried out without a license and without proving the change of use, for which reason the Provincial Court sentenced Monasterio last January to compensate the actor with 8,043 euros because he was “aware of its illegality.”
In December 2021, the Supreme Court sentenced Espinosa de los Monteros for trying to avoid paying 63,000 euros for the works on his house in Madrid, a modern and luxurious single-family home in the Chamartín district that the family acquired in 2014 with a mortgage of 1.2 million euros. The couple not only did not pay the builder, but also declared bankruptcy to the company through which they had to pay. When Espinosa de los Monteros was required to resign in Congress after being convicted of not paying for the renovation of his four-story home, he simply replied: “It doesn't have four floors, but five.”
In addition, the house did not have an occupation and habitability license and was about to be sealed by the Madrid City Council. That led to being reminded in Congress that he was “an occupier with K” for years.
His judicial problems increased in April, when the Treasury discovered that together with his wife he had allegedly invented false invoices for a value of 169,000 euros for real estate advice that, according to the Tax Agency, never existed.. In addition, they revealed that they tried to tax the sale worth 25 million through two companies without activity.