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KING Felipe VI's Christmas Eve speech contained clear references to Catalunya's political crisis, although without specifically mentioning the region.

Royalty are expected to be politically-neutral, meaning the Monarch would not have been able to make a direct condemnation of the independence movement, but in an unusual move, he did not hesitate to name Catalunya.

HRH Felipe said 2017 had been 'a difficult year for our life together' as a country, adding: “Spain is, today, a mature democracy where any citizen can think, defend and weigh up, freely and democratically, their opinions and their ideas; but cannot impose their own ideas on other people's rights.”

In the same vein, the King called for 'the principles and values of our social and democratic State and rule of law' to be 'respected and preserved', warning that 'once these basic principles are broken' the cohesion of the community 'firstly deteriorates and later becomes impossible'.

The Monarch conceded, however, that the path taken over the history of Spain's democracy 'has not always been the right one'.