Spanish government to take monarchy investigation committee to court

The Spanish government will take the Catalan parliament committee on Spain's crown to the Constitutional Court.

The chamber, the seat of which is in Barcelona, launched the committee last week to look into potential "criminal or irregular" activities of the monarchy.

This includes those aimed at "forcing the transfer of the registered office of banks, large companies and multinationals to outside Catalonia after the October 1 independence referendum."

The proposal was introduced by and passed with votes from the pro-independence parties and non-aligned Catalunya en Comú-Podem, while unionist parties opposed it.

Madrid aims for the Constitutional Court to accept its appeal for consideration and immediately order a precautionary suspension of the committee.

According to the Spanish government, the parliament has "no powers" to investigate activities of people related to the crown. The same argument was used by the unionist parties to reject the committee.

Attempts to dissolve monarchy

The move to look into the potential alleged criminal activity of the crown came some months after the Catalan parliament tabled a motion to abolish the Spanish monarchy entirely following the role of the king in the independence bid.

Some weeks later, Madrid took the anti-monarchy motion to court despite counsel by its most senior advisory body not to do so.

The very same day, October 26, 2018, Barcelona local council passed a similar motion condemning the Spanish monarchy and asking for its abolition. 

Low popularity

In particular, the king was criticized in Catalonia for his speech two days after the independence referendum on October 1, 2017, which gave no mention to police violence on the day of the vote and made no call for dialogue.

In recent polls, the Spanish king received a low popularity score of 1.8/10 throughout Catalonia, while 60% of Catalans rated King Felipe VI with a score of 0.

The attempt to dissolve the Spanish monarchy last October cited wishes to abolish “an outdated and anti-democratic institution.”