The presence of Princess Leonor in
the crucial speech with which King Felipe addressed the nation two days after the illegal referendum
on the independence of Catalonia, on October 3, 2017, symbolizes the Crown's vocation for permanence in its duty
to save and keep the Constitution
that makes all Spaniards citizens with rights.
The monarch's decision to
involve the Heiress
in the preparation of the message, which this newspaper reveals today, evokes the
presence of Don Felipe himself in the speech that his father delivered on February 23, 1981 in rejection of the assault on the Democratic Courts led by Lieutenant Colonel Antonio Tejero.
It was the most critical moment of the reign of Juan Carlos I,
as the Catalan sedition has been in that of Felipe VI.
That night the King fully fulfilled the arbitration role that our parliamentary democracy assigns him.
He addressed the Spanish
without slipping down the dangerous but pleasant path of compromise
-the easy thing would have been a hollow appeal to dialogue-, and sending the message that a frightened country needed and that it would have expected from its political representatives.
On the one hand, the strong defense of the Constitution and the unity
of the nation that emanates from it.
On the other, his unwavering commitment to all Spaniards, especially non-independence Catalans, to whom he addressed decisive words: “I tell you that you are not alone, nor will you be;
that have
all the support and solidarity of the rest of the Spaniards
, and the absolute guarantee of our Rule of Law in the defense of their freedom and their rights».
Five years after that intervention, its historical relevance is indisputable.
Today we know that with the strength that the King transmitted, the vacillating political parties found the legitimacy they were looking for -although they already had it-
to agree on the application of article 155 in Catalonia
.
Rereading the words of Don Felipe also allows us to discover to what extent the King championed the essence of political republicanism:
respect for the law above all,
for the law, as an expression of the sovereign will of the people, can never be overwhelmed by any government or any real or pretended majority.
The King concluded with a message of hope, based on the strength of the democratic principles on which recent Spain is based.
Leonor continues on that path.
Her participation as a direct witness to her father's most difficult speech has a key meaning, and she is
the commitment to the continuity of the Spanish nation
.
A nation that is not a nationalist, jingoistic or inbred community, but the concrete space where we are citizens, that is, where we are assisted by rights that must be safeguarded, also in the face of regimes that seek to break the current order and peaceful coexistence.
It will be up to the Princess of Girona to update those values
who in 2017 defended his father with such courage.
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