\n King Felipe VI called on Spaniards to protect “democratic coexistence” against the perils of polarisation in a Christmas message.\n <\/p>\n
Corruption cases and sexual harassment scandals have dogged Socialist Prime Minister Pedro S\u00e1nchez’s fragile minority coalition government and plunged Spanish politics into turbulence.<\/p>\n
The conservative opposition constantly launches invectives against the government and demands early elections, but S\u00e1nchez refuses to resign, denouncing a smear campaign against his administration and his family.<\/p>\n
“Citizens also perceive that tension in the public debate causes weariness, disenchantment and disaffection,” Felipe said in his traditional address to the nation from Madrid’s Royal Palace.<\/p>\n
“Extremism, radicalism and populism feed off this lack of trust, disinformation, inequalities, disenchantment with the present and doubts about how to face the future.”<\/p>\n
Spain this year marked 50 years since the death of General Francisco Franco, which ended his brutal 36-year dictatorship and initiated a complex path towards restoring democracy.<\/p>\n
Advertisement<\/p>\n
“Coexistence is not an everlasting legacy. It is not enough to have received it: it is a fragile construct,” Felipe warned.<\/p>\n
“It is up to all of us to preserve confidence in our democratic coexistence,” he said, adding: “In democracy, one’s own ideas can never be dogmas; nor can those of others be threats.”<\/p>\n
The monarch, 57, called for “dialogue” and “exemplary conduct in the performance of all public authorities”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"King Felipe VI called on Spaniards to protect “democratic coexistence” against the perils of polarisation in a Christmas…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":655946,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5312],"tags":[2000,299,104],"class_list":{"0":"post-655945","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-spain","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-spain"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115786131903772335","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=655945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655945\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/655946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=655945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=655945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=655945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}