For the second year in a row, TV3, the Catalan public broadcaster, won't broadcast the traditional Christmas speech by Spanish king Felipe VI. As reported by Nació Digital, the monarch's message this Sunday will be relegated to 24-hour news channel 3/24. This is the same as happened last year. This year's speech comes only three days after the Catalan election which gave a new absolute majority to pro-independence parties.
In his last televised speech, on 3rd October, the same day as the first "countrywide standstill", Felipe VI ratcheted up the tone against independence supporters. Without even mentioning the almost 1000 people injured by police violence during the referendum two days earlier, the monarch accused Carles Puigdemont's government of "an attempt to appropriate the institutions of Catalonia" and of "systematically violating the laws, demonstrating an inadmissible disloyalty to the powers of the state".