All of Pedro Sánchez’s partners, those who are part of his Government and those who support him in Congress, have revolted against the King’s Christmas message. All of them are offended that Felipe VI, symbol of the “unity and permanence” of the State, wanted on this occasion to defend the Constitution and the values ??of democracy and coexistence that gave birth to it and that it advocates.
From Sumar, a minority member of the Executive, to the PNV, through Podemos, ERC, Junts and the BNG, all the nationalist, independence and radical left parties have attacked the Monarch’s words. “Disappointing”, “far from Euskadi and Catalonia”, “out of reality”, “from the past”, “reactionary”. With these qualifiers, the forces that deny the basic pillars of the Magna Carta – the political form of the State and the indivisible unity of the nation – have defined the discourse.
Unlike them, the two main parties -PP and PSOE- have applauded the message despite the fact that they can be taken for granted by some of the passages addressed by the Head of State which, on this occasion, clearly reveal their concern about the level of political confrontation, the degree of social polarization and the radical questioning of the Constitution.
The leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, in a message in In this sense, he stressed like the Monarch that “outside of respect for the Constitution and institutions there is no law but arbitrariness.”
Along the same lines, the general secretary of the party, Cuca Gamarra, wanted to point out that the PP “fully shares” everything said by Felipe VI, mainly the statement that “outside the Constitution there is no freedom but arbitrariness.” “Together” is the word that the Head of State repeated most and that the popular people wanted to highlight for whom democracy is “a shared life project.” They join the call to “respect the Magna Carta and keep its spirit alive” as well as the “basic consensus that has allowed the collective achievements of four decades. “Unity in the present and, above all, in the future” is the key to The PP of the Monarch’s message consider the King’s message as “powerful and high.”
The president of the PSOE, Cristina Narbona, has assured that her party shares the “concern” of the Head of State about the main problems that affect the Spanish people. And she has mentioned: employment, health, education, decent retirement, violence against women and housing. The socialist leader has assured that all of this is part of the priorities of her party and her Government.
He also says he “shares” the considerations that the Monarch makes about the Constitution “as an ideal framework to preserve and conserve coexistence and begin the path towards a modern democracy.” According to Narbona, the Magna Carta preserves the “unity” of Spain because it “integrates the diversity of languages, cultures and institutions.” “Unity in diversity,” he says, “that makes us a stronger country.”
The president of the PSOE has also taken the opportunity to insist that “to defend the Constitution it is not enough to just respect it in a more or less nominal way”, but that we must “preserve the ethical and political values ??that are at the base of the great social consensus”. The socialists, through the mouth of Narbona, have seen in Felipe VI’s Christmas message practically full support for the Executive’s policy.
The Christmas Eve speech is always the most personal of the King and, although in Moncloa its content is known in advance, the margin that the Government has to retouch it is practically non-existent, unlike the Monarch’s interventions in official events and trips in which The hand of the ministries and the Presidency is clearly visible.
This Christmas message has raised blisters mainly in the nationalist and independence groups that make up, in exchange for burdensome concessions, the compact bloc that has supported the investiture of Pedro Sánchez and the formation of a new PSOE-Sumar coalition Executive.
The two Catalan secessionist parties, Junts and ERC, radically opposed in a competition to demonstrate to the pro-independence electorate which of the two is the one that is tearing the most pieces from the State, have agreed in their resounding criticism of the words of Felipe VI.
For the president of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, the speech was designed to satisfy “the right and the extreme right.” In his opinion, “the citizens of Catalonia do not feel represented by the monarchy”, and this despite the fact that the Catalans were the ones who most strongly supported a Constitution that enshrines it in its article one as a political form of the State.
Aragonès has seen in the King’s words clear echoes of those he spoke on October 3, 2017, after the illegal independence referendum was held. A date on which, according to the president of the Generalitat, “the few ties” that part of Catalonia maintained with the monarch were broken. Aragonés maintains that this Christmas speech has been “the continuation” of that of six years ago.
The general secretary of Junts, Jordi Turull, convicted of sedition and embezzlement by the Supreme Court and later pardoned by the Government, has also considered the King’s message as a second part of the one addressed to the nation in October 2017, in the midst of the secessionist attempt. . Some words, this year’s, he said, “irrelevant” and “contradictory” because, in his opinion, they encourage the “discord” that he precisely intends to reject.
Nor has Basque nationalism been satisfied. The PNV spokesperson in Congress, Aitor Esteban, has regretted the references to Spain “as the only nation.” “It is a speech,” he said, “that is not made for us, but for the PP, the PSOE and Vox. About the discrepancies that exist in Euskadi and Catalonia with the Constitution there is nothing to say.” Esteban has stressed that the Magna Carta was only approved at the time by 30% of the Basque census and has assured that, in his opinion, the “common and shared project and unity” to which Felipe VI referred must be based on “voluntariness.”
The nationalist spokesperson has criticized that the Constitution “is interpreted more as a closing key than as a facilitator” and has reproached the King for not making reference to those of us, he stated, “who question the Constitution.” “We,” Esteban insisted, “are a different nation.”
Sumar, a junior partner of the coalition Executive, has not been pleased with the speech either. According to his spokesperson in the Lower House, Marta Lois, he has been “disappointing.” Lois has added to the King’s words, assuming that she is wrong when he speaks of “polarization” because in reality, according to Sumar’s representative, what it is about is “the extreme right against democracy.”
The deputy regretted that Felipe VI did not focus “on social rights and daily life”, that he did not refer to the “plurinationality” that his party defends and preferred to “expose the most restrictive interpretation of the Constitution.” The speech was, in her opinion, “from the past” and “far from the real country.”
From Podemos, its general secretary, Ione Belarra, criticized that the Head of State did not mention the “genocide in Palestine.” For the purple leader, the King made “desperate attempts to gain the sympathy of the right.” The Secretary of Institutional Action, María Teresa Pérez, has expressed the same sense, for whom the King “was seeking forgiveness from the ultras who were recently angry with him.”
This year, EH Bildu has chosen not to make any assessment of the words of Felipe VI. Instead, they have deployed a campaign on social networks with the slogan “Why don’t you shut up?” The Abertzales insist on not valuing a discourse that “the Spanish Monarchy imposes on the Basque public media” treating Euskadi – “our country”, they say – “as a subject.” In the days before Christmas Eve, EH Bildu invited people to “boycott” Felipe VI’s Christmas message by “turning off the radios and televisions” that broadcast it.
