A navy blue banner in support of Princess Leonor welcomed the Royal Family at the Campoamor Theater last Friday. For a year now, these types of banners, with a navy blue background and always printed with the Spanish flag, have accompanied the members of the Royal Family in their most transcendental appearances: they were in Oviedo on Friday and also when the Princess visited Figueres before Of summer. Those responsible are Concordia Real Española (CREE), the association that was born at the end of 2020 to ensure “the legacy of a Monarchy that brought democracy to Spain and that knew how to harmonize individual or group interests to build a common national project. of progress and prosperity. Today that legacy is threatened and suffers attacks that seek to reverse our recent history,” they say in their constitutional manifesto.. But are not the only ones.
The role of the King and the model of the Spanish State is not expressly included in the History syllabus in secondary school at Lomloe. Yes it was in the Wert law, where the section “of the Transition to democracy” had a specific mention of the role of the head of state. Spanish adolescents are not very clear about the usefulness of the Crown, nor are part of adult Spaniards. Partly motivated by this, for the last two years Spain has been experiencing a birth of organizations dedicated to giving visibility to the role of Felipe VI as arbitrator of the functioning of the institutions. Some work with studios and conferences and others more on the street, but all with the same objective: to make the Monarchy known.
Concordia Real Española is the most active on the street. Not only through the banners that welcome the Kings wherever they go. Also in court. Thus, throughout their short existence they have submitted various documents to safeguard the prestige of the Monarchy.. This association not only defends the parliamentary Monarchy, but is dedicated to enhancing the heritage of Don Juan Carlos. A few months ago they presented the website a royal legacy, where they analyzed the foreign role of the father of Felipe VI as representative of the State in Spain's international relations during his reign. They concluded that it had contributed 62,000 million and 2.4 million jobs to the Spanish economy. CREE is financed through donations and they also have merchandising with the shield of Felipe VI that they sell through their website.
Last week the Red de Estudio de las Monarchías Parlamentarias (REMCO) was presented, a project attached to the Elcano Royal Institute in which, as they themselves explain, “a group of friends” want to “contribute to the knowledge of parliamentary monarchies from a rigorous academic perspective, if possible with a comparative orientation, and in any case fleeing from entering into short-term ideological controversies». From REMCO they assure that “it is evident that the Spanish parliamentary monarchy has been the object of both direct attacks and marked contempt by various political formations for years.”
Felipe VI and the Queen greet on Saturday during their visit to Cadavedo, Exemplary Town of Asturias 2022. EUROPA PRESS FINANCING PLAN
They seek to open a study space and through debates and analysis make their conclusions known. The president of REMCO is the former president of the Senate Juan José Laborda and they have created an independent financing plan so as not to depend on outside influences. Thus, they estimate they need a budget of 150,000 euros per year to cover their expenses. To carry out their financing plan, they created two figures: the Friends, who make an annual contribution of up to 2,999 euros, and the Benefactors, with an economic commitment of more than 3,000 euros.. It currently has 27 benefactors, including the Marquis de Isasi, the executive president of Garrigues and the owner of Pérez-Llorca. Among the friends are former ministers Matías Rodríguez Iniciarte or Javier Gómez Navarro, as well as businessmen such as Helena Revoredo.
This last association adds its work to that of the Villacisneros Foundation, which two years ago launched the project “The monarchy of all”. “We thought something had to be done, especially after the departure of Don Juan Carlos from Spain,” explains Carlos Urquijo in conversation with EL MUNDO. “At first we commissioned a legal report that analyzed what monarchies and republics meant within the European Union,” he says.. Given the good acceptance, they decided to do something in the multimedia field to get closer to young people and since then it is there, in the cloud, where they work.
They also disseminate the history of the Monarchy in summer courses, the last one with the Francisco de Vitoria University. Urquijo acknowledges the birth of these new institutions to support the Monarchy, “but it is not a phenomenon, I wish there were more to give visibility to the usefulness of the Crown”, he believes. The Villacisneros Foundation, like the others, is private and is financed through donations. The latest project they have carried out has been the publication in La Esfera of the book La corona en España, de los reyes Godos a Felipe VI.
Although the King has not received any of these associations in audience, they all inform Zarzuela of their work, not to ask permission, they explain, but for information. And the three previous ones look in the mirror of the Spanish Institutional Foundation (FIES), a cultural foundation that was born in 1976 to present the value of the Crown to society. This institution does have the support of the Crown, especially in the activity What is a king for you?, which involves schools from all over Spain.