With the same energy with which he refused to meet Carme Forcadell —the newly-appointed Speaker of the Catalan parliament— and, in doing so, he neglected his most elementary institutional duty, the King of Spain —whose name isn’t Felipe VI for nothing— has rushed to meet the Speakers of Spain’s upper and lower chamber.
Indeed, the monarch met Patxi López, the new Speaker of the Spanish parliament and the man who led the first agreement between the PSOE and the PP (in the Basque Country) —with politically catastrophic results—, and the Speaker of the Senate, Pío García Escudero, a gentleman who can only be described as being as cumbersome and dispensable as the institution he presides over.
They met while singing the praises of dialogue and Spain’s unity, two notions which some regard as being entirely at odds with one another. So much so, that the aforementioned King and his team of courtiers deemed it inappropriate to thank Artur Mas for his services when drafting the decree that formalised the end of Mas’ term in office as Catalan president.
At any rate, the King of Spain must be preoccupied with other matters concerning his family. For instance, finding out the whereabouts of his estranged father, who preceded him in the post and quit overnight without further explanation, except that the father in question enjoyed killing elephants in the company of Central European princesses and that he retired with a (personal) fortune of about €2bn whose source nobody really knows.
In contrast, the current King of Spain is well aware of where his sister Cristina and his brother-in-law Iñaki live: in Majorca, to be precise, where they are being tried for a number of alleged offences: fraud, bribery and embezzlement of public funds. During the first hearing, their counsel —which, funnily enough, is led by the Public Prosecutor (only in Majorca, indeed!)— was quick to formulate a new doctrine that deserves to be remembered and kept in mind: not only is it untrue that the Treasury is all of us, but it is just plain silly to claim that it is (1).
Such statements have annoyed judge José Castro, who has in turn been slammed further and so on and so forth. Judicial quarrels aside, there is one simple truth that has emerged at last: it turns out that not everyone was the Treasury, but only us lot. That is, you and I, and him, and her over there. Meanwhile, the King of Spain scorns Catalonia’s top institutional representatives while blessing two leaders who are unlikely to be able to carry out their duties for the simple reason that there won’t be a new government in Spain. It all makes sense and is highly revealing of the Spanish monarch’s sense of national duty. All in all, I am reminded of a Jaume Perich cartoon, back in the days of General Franco, where a sign in big bold letters read: “When a forest gets burnt, something yours gets burnt too, your Lordship”.
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(1) N.T. Spain’s Treasury used to have an ongoing TV ad campaign which aimed to sensitise Spaniards about the need to pay taxes. Its catch phrase was “The Treasury is all of us”.
