No less peculiar is the protocol behavior of the current president of the Generalitat when Felipe VI visits Catalonia. He seems determined to do anything but appear in a photo with the monarch. It reads like an archaic republican stance—especially when compared with the more pragmatic posture once shown by Josep Tarradellas—and it lacks institutional sense. In a parliamentary monarchy, a republican who serves as president of the Generalitat can represent the state, but institutional logic demands respect for the Head of State. This kind of weakness harms stability in Catalonia.
The present Generalitat leader does not stand at the main door to greet the King. He slips in through another door, call it a back door, to avoid the photo and hope to keep himself from looking entirely bad in the monarch’s presence, all while republican supporters cry foul. It has happened so often, especially in Girona and Barcelona, that watching this tactic recur in another round of briefings for new judges or at the inauguration of the Mobile World Congress feels like a silent film. All for the sake of preserving a so-called virgin republican stance, even though republicanism never really becomes a societal priority in Catalonia. Moreover, even though the national crisis triggered by the King’s intervention during the unilateral declaration of independence temporarily lowered monarchy approval, the recovery has been significant. It is not incidental that rallying yellow ribbons supporting the pro‑independence movement has faded. It is important to remember how, after that moment of gravity, secessionists forged a vast political-media fiction.
King visits to Catalonia are frequent and carefully calibrated, and the figure of the Princess of Asturias has also integrated into the public imagination in a way that emotionally and symbolically distances itself from secessionism, even though there exists in Catalonia a strong digital front that daily fuels the defamation of the Royal Family. In truth, the monarchy costs far less than the presidency of the Federal Republic of Germany or France. The Norwegian monarchy is cited as the most expensive in Europe by some comparisons.
In moments of crisis, the monarchy is seen as a guarantor of stability and continuity for the state. Through its symbolic capacity, it acts as a buffer when the nation faces high tension. There is no need to look through a telescope to see how monarchies in Europe or Japan have supported democratic evolution. This was evident in Spain after the end of Franco’s regime. The 1978 Constitution, widely supported in Catalonia, recognized the monarch’s role. The central figure at that time was King Juan Carlos, whose later private indiscretions led to abdication. The constitutional monarchy recovered quickly and has since weathered the secessionist challenge. For the current Generalitat president, the risk is that his repeated door-by-pass approach may come to define him more than his official responsibilities.