The visits of King Felipe VI to Barcelona lately follow the same pattern. The monarch is dedicated to defending the Spanish institutional system, and praising the entrepreneurial spirit of the Catalans, and receives entertainment from the business world. Instead, Catalan political leaders try to show that an abyss separates them from the King by dodging formal greetings, but later, with fewer cameras, they quietly share space with him.
It happened at the last meeting of the Cercle d’Economia and at the inauguration of the Mobile World Congress, both events in June this year, and it happened again this Monday. Felipe VI closed his Barcelona day by attending the 250th anniversary of the Foment del Treball employer association. Neither the president of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, nor the mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau, were at the monarch’s hand-kissing, but they did share a table later with him.
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From the environment of the ‘president’ they explained that Aragonès and the King did share space just after that formal moment. It was “just a greeting, just like in the Mobile”, before sitting down at the table, and he was also joined by Colau and the Minister of Transport, Raquel Sánchez, among others.
Felipe VI’s table is so crowded that it is difficult for him to maintain a moderately productive dialogue with Aragonès. In addition, they are sitting opposite each other, in the farthest places. Among them are, among others, Minister Sánchez; the president of Foment, Josep Sánchez Llibre; the president of the CEOE, Antonio Garamendi; the president of La Caixa, Isidre Fainé; and Colau. Up to 16 people share a tablecloth at that presidential table.
Reference-www.elperiodico.com