A new missed opportunity for King Felipe VI

BarcelonaThere was a lot of expectation surrounding Felipe VI's Christmas speech after a year when economic scandals forced his father, Juan Carlos I, to leave Spain and take refuge in the United Arab Emirates. In some circles, explicit disavowal of the behaviour of the ex king was expected, since this is the only way the current monarch can try to safeguard an institution with a badly damaged image. Finally, the speech included only one sentence alluding to the issue, even though it was elliptical and it spoke of the importance of ethical values: "[ethical values are] principles that bind us all without exception; and are above any consideration, of whatever nature, even personal or family ones". The message that the King's House wants to convey to citizens, then, is that Felipe VI will not tremble if he has to take more forceful measures against his father. For the moment, however, everything remains as it was.

From this point of view, the speech is another lost opportunity for Felipe VI, who continues to resist making a clear break with his father's figure. And this is because a few weeks ago the ex king admitted for the first time that he had committed tax fraud by making a supplementary declaration to the Treasury for the value of almost 700,000 euros. This money corresponded to the use of opaque cards credit after his abdication, so they had no possible legal defence. This, however, corresponds to a very small part of what is currently under investigation. Only a few days ago, it became known that Switzerland has placed the combined fortune of Juan Carlos I and Corinna Larsen at EUR 82 million.

In order to avoid thorny issues, the King, who is the Supreme Command of the armed forces, did not make any direct reference to the chats of retired or active military personnel defending coup d'état positions either. He simply made a strong defense of the Constitution and a call to leave behind "a long period of confrontations and divisions", a euphemistic allusion to Franco's dictatorship.

The problem of Felipe VI is that with this kind of speech he disconnects more and more from a very important part of the Spanish citizenship. And we are not speaking here of Catalonia, where the monarchy has been clearly discredited since the speech of 3 October 2017, but of broad layers of the Spanish population, the most progressive and also the young, who do not feel identified with what the monarchical institution represents. On the other hand, the right wing, which had previously been suspicious of its father, now enthusiastically aligns itself with an institution that they perceive as an effective brake on any kind of in-depth change in the system born out of the 1978 pact.

And so, with every year and every speech, the monarchy is more and more a one-sided institution, of the more conservative side in particular, and less a meeting point. And in the long run, everyone knows what this means.