KING Felipe VI's eagerly-anticipated first-ever Christmas speech condemned corruption, called for Catalunya to stay together with Spain and thanked everyone for their support in his coronation after his father, King Juan Carlos I, abdicated in June.
The Monarch began by thanking the public for 'letting him into their homes' on Christmas Eve night, when Spanish families have their festive dinner and get-together rather than on Christmas Day as is the case in northern Europe and Anglo-Saxon countries.
He commented on the hardship, uncertainty and difficult times suffered by Spanish society as a result of the financial crisis, how 'some of our political problems are generating concern', and on the fact that "the behaviour of certain public servants which are a long way off being what one would expect provoke, and rightly so, indignation."
Although he did not at any point mention the name of his sister, the Infanta Cristina or her husband, Inaki Urdangarín, the millions of viewers tuned into his speech read between the lines: the Duchess of Palma has been formally charged as an 'accessory' to the Duke's money-laundering and embezzlement racket, and faces trial next year.
"In October, I stated in Asturias that we needed moral role models to admire, ethical principles we could recognise, community values to maintain. I said, back then, that we needed a great collective moral impulse, and now I want to' add that we need a profound regeneration of our collective lives. And this task requires a fight against corruption which should be our relentless aim," stated the new King, who urged society to try to resolve its problems with 'firmness and efficiency' in order to 'regain the calm and serenity' that 'a democratic society like ours requires and deserves'.
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