Motion: “Spain: Monarchy or Republic?”
Presented by Jorge Rodríguez Prida
When Franco died in 1975, nobody asked the Spanish people if they wanted to be part of the Third Republic or if they wanted a king. For 33 years Spain’s head of State has been a man selected by a dictator, not by the Spanish people. This cannot be democracy. A democratic system is one in which the governings are elected by the voters. I would like to know your opinion about this topic.
Comments»
I think Spanish people have been asked twice about Monarchy: Before the death of Franco and when the Constitution was voted.
Recently we have heard this debate on TV, radios and so on… but I don’t think this question is really in the streets. I mean ,I haven’t seen anyone arguing about this except the images of this undesirable stupid people burning the King’s pictures and Spanish flags. I agree with Xil. Spaniards have voted the Monarchy when they voted the Constitution. If they had wanted a Republic, the Constitution wouldn’t have been approved.
For me, monarchy is not necessary nowadays in Spain. I know that it has done an important labour in our period of transition . In my opinion, Spanish people haven´t been asked about it because in that period, we needed a diplomatic corps who help us to recover international relationships. I agree with MNT 009 , Spanish people are not worry about this topic, because they really love the current king.
I wonder if someone of these opinions come from people who live in those years. Then, it was impossible for politicians to think or, less, to say the word “Republic” without causing a commotion within the Army or the eclesiastic hierarchy. There was an enormous problem: if the Constitution had included a republican system, it could have been risk that Constitution would have been not only rejected, but not even written. There was no consolidated democracy, so there was no place for electing a republican system. We shouldn’t forget that 26 months after being approved that Constitution, we had got the 23-F. Monarchy or Republic? It doesn’t matter: MONEY is the real king.
I agree with Nightwish in the first thing he says. After the death of Franco people were scared about what could happen. We had already had a war because of this and nobody wanted it again, it was still a very fresh memory. However, now things are much more different. If something like a referendum was promoted now, everything could happen, everything but a civil war. So I don’t know why don’t we have the chance to choose our democratic system.
I don’t thing in this case money is the real king, the king has too much money. Recently I have read that the king has annual budget of 7 million €. Who of you think that this isn’t too much? With this money more than 4000 scholarships could be given to students. I wait for your answer.
Yes, times have changed. I can’t imagine a new civil war now due to political, or something similar, questions. And I can’t see why we don’t have the chance to choose, as Maroto says. But, from my point of view, there are huge interests against a wishable and impartial referendum. The Media and their owners, those who controlled economic power (money is, maybe, not the king, but the main principle of everything), make their best to show us what a foolish thing could be a change to a republican system and what wonderful is our king (he earns too much money, I do agree) and his family. Imposed by Franco, let’s not forget it. Yes, included in the Constitution, but…
I have also watched the documentary the other day (’How would Spain be if Republicans had won the Civil war?’)and it made me think,once again,about the sense of our Monarchy.The rol of our king is just representative as the government has the political power,so…I just don’t see why we need him.
I think that the people love the king, our king, Don Juan Carlos, but thy love the person, not the charge he develops.
In my opinion, this man is not the point of the debate, the point is : should exist the figure of a king in this time? And my answer is no. And it’s simply because this fugure is not needed anymore, is a rest of the past.
What do you think?
Maroto, I’ve just read your last comment and I wanted to say several things about it. I agree with your first part, but as I read it I smelt that you think that if Spanish people were asked today about what system they want, there would be lots of people that would want a Republic. Is that what you meant?. Well, I do think that if a referendum was done, most of the people would vote to continue like we are. Nowadays we are tending to hear that the Monarchy does anything. Instead, I think that it has done really important things to maintain the country’s unity in certain critic episodes, such the Transition or the 23-F. And, as a result, I think that most of the population don’t have this issue in their minds, because they agree with the system. To end up, I would like to say something about the money. Although we might not believe it, the Italian Republic’s budget, for instance, is much higher that the amount of money that is assigned to the Monarchy in Spain, and these are facts. So , talking about money, my question is : Would you want a Republic here taking into account that this budget would be wider?
In my case I choose Republic,these are my reasons against.There are some reasons for.
1.-Nowadays it is difficult to assume that a family can be different from the rest because their surname is Borbón.Our Constitution says it.It is not fair that they are receiving a big amount of money without any kind of control and for doing nothing at all.
2.-These family is in Palace because in the past they won some battles agains another an aristocrat’s family using the force.
3.-I also think that J.Carlos was important in 23F but it was more important the support of the army and the forces of the State and his time is over.Many people love him,but what will happen when Felipe VI rules in this country?
4.-The president of a republic govern for 4 years and after that if people don´t support him he leaves out.
It will be continue…
Nowadays, this topic is very common because of the burning of the pictures of the King. I think this discussion has not very sense in countries like Spain in which the Kings are only a mere figure, they do not decide anything about the country.
Our monarchy is not a real monarchy as a lot of people think,this is not like the monarchy in the seventeen or the eighteen century,with the absolutist monarchy. It is believed that the Real family waste a lot of money but all the money they waste is from an amount of money that the king is given from the state budget at the beginning of the year and it is he how give the money to his children if he wants.
To sum up, I think everyohas the right to express their opinion freely and it is obvious that they have to respect others.
I’m not sure because I’m not an expert in this theme but I believe that if Spain were a republic we’d have a President of the republic to do the same things that the king does now and the current President would be called Prime Minister or something like that, so we have to choose a President and surely we’d do that in elections for President of republic. The President would be a professional politician belonging to a party and probably with a long political career and lots of enemies, maybe a former Minister or Prime Minister. I can imagine Felipe Gonzalez or Aznar elected and saying in a serious way, I want to be the President of all Spanish people but I think they never achieve it.
Sebastian is right saying that the president of the republic would do the same things as the king does, but the point is that the president would be elected by the Spanish people, it wouldn’t be inherited like in the Middle Age. That’s one of the aims of the republican movement. People should remember that we live in the XXI century.
I have read all of the comments and the first thing that I want to say is that WE ARE LUCKY!!!!! We live in a country with freedom of thinking and talking. Democracy has given us years of quite good prosperity. The Constitution is our treasure, without it some people, that still lives in the past, could have made lot of damage in our society.
On the other hand, what could you tell me about France? France is a Republic and I think that they don’t live as well as us, they have an estrange President and they have problems, most of them quite similar to our problems, for example, the immigration.
As Maroto has said, I must recognise that the real family earns a lot of money and with that money thousands of people could be helped, but I think that The Monarchy is the central point that our society has in common. They have helped us to show our country all over the world quite good. With the referendums after the Franco’s dead we were free to choose our own destiny; nobody put a gun on our head to oblige us to change our mind (although I think that there were exceptions).
Jorge, you have said that our King was selected by a dictator, and yes, that it is right, but do you think that the Franco’s Heirs would have allowed us to choose our own destiny? I don’t think so. I think that The Monarchy has saved our lives of another civil war and with it, the 23-F still happened.
Our Democratic Monarchy is the perfect balance between a dictatorship and a Republic.
Everybody in Spain loves Juan Carlos, but it doesn´t mean that the same people likes the monarchy. Our king is the most popular person in this country. He has taken part in important moments of our history and this is the reason why people respects him. But, what about Felipe, the heir to the throne?
I’m not talking about Middle Age, I’m thinking in our world in the XXIth century. Around thirty countries in the world are currently monarchies. Among then there are countries as rich as Japan, as developed as Norway, Sweden or Denmark, as influential as the United Kingdom, or as clearly associated with freedom as Holland. That is why I believe that being a monarchy is not a problem nowadays and I’m not jealous at all of Italian republic for instance.
Although some presidents from South America don´t agree with me, I think we can´t forget that our monarchy is very important in diplomatic negotiations. They are the perfect ambassadors. It is said that our queen is a perfect professional in her job. The last polls show that the most popular Spanish personage is the king Juan Carlos I.
Yes, our king is popular. Even republicans like him. That’s because he gained our respect in the 23-F. Things might be different with his son.
Apart from that I must say that each year demonstrations against monarchy are bigger. You could see that some weeks ago, in the republican demonstration here in Oviedo.
In my opinion there are two different debates. One is “Are our kings doing their role good”? Most people think they do their job quite well. However, the main question is the one in the motion of this debate: “Spain: Monarchy or Republic”. Have ever been a referendum to decide this? It’s true that our Constitution was aproved and therefore Monarchy was aproved but I feel this is not enough: a specific referendum to decide on Monarchy should be arranged.
I am not against our present Monarchs in particular buy I am against Monarchy in general because I think law should ensure every person on the world (or in our country at least) should be born with the same rights and duties as the others. I do not understand why a family has “speciall rights” for the only reason of being the Borbón Family. This system belong to past times.
Do you really think that anything will change if we become a Republic? Because in my opinion, it doesn’t matter, the President of the Republic will do the same as the King does now. It seems to me the we idealize the idea of the Republic only because we don’t have it.
I agree with Diana as I have an Italian friend and she’s always complaining about Republic.However,I believe choosing our president is important.Being king of Spain because you have historical roots and belong to a wealthy family is not enough.
Well, it is more the idea of a concept that a pragmatic change. I think monarchy may be useful but even then I’d prefer Spain to be a Republic. Monarchy is a system of past times, when nobility gathered law and power. Nowadays more and more democratic systems should be imposed.
Members of The Royal Family are born with “special” rights and duties by the only fact of belonging that family. Have you ever thought why? It is just a system inherited from past times. I think it should be abolished.
Well, have you all considered that having a republic president or a king (it doesn’t matter wheter he’s suitable for his post), part of our national budget is going to pay his travels and many other things?
In fact it’s the same thing: a king, a president, they have to represent our country, sign our laws (ok there’s one difference: the president is chosen and the king not),…To summarize it, the’are the same dogs with different collars (sorry for the spanish literal translation).:))
Maybe the Republic is more “just” system because everybody could became president of it. Anyway I don’t think is worth spending lots of money and efforts to change from one thing to another which is almost the same.
This is difficult topic to talk about. There are a lot of opinions about our politic system and all of them may be right. My opinion in this issue is that it is right that was not democratically elected but he has done lost of things for our country. I think that thanks to him we are in a democratic country and not under a dictatorial system. For this cause, my opinion is that Juan Carlos is the best head of state for Spain. Another thing to consider is Felipe whose future is not very clear.
Diana, I agree with you. I think that the Republic doesn’t sort out anything. It would be the same than nowadays, with the difference that anyone could become the “head of state”.
Mr escusas, I also agree with you and I ´d add that in my opinion, Felipe has future in the monarchy but she won’t be so loved as his father in Spain
I do agree with you Lollipop, Felipe may has future in the monarchy however he doesn´t have much options of being loved as his father. In my opinion he will be a great king but he will have to fight to be respected.
I do agree with Lollipop, Felipe will have a future in the monarchy however he will not be loved as his father. He will have to fight to be respected. Another thing is the controversial situation of his wife and Leticia´s sister. This kind of things are not very good for his popularity so he has to avoid them.
As far as I know, everybody knows Juan Carlos is a well-considered King here in Spain and in the international scene too, but this is not the main point of the debate. What we are discussing here is if Spain should be a republic or a monarchy, not about the feelings you have about the Real Family.
First of all, an important point to consider is the form of government of our country before the civil war. On February 16, 1936 the “Popular Front” was elected DEMOCRATICALLY. It was a coalition of Republicans, Communist and Catalanists elected in order to continue with the reforms they had been doing until the previous government of the CEDA, a coalition of centre-right and fascists, stopped them in 1934. This victory was due to the popular desire to continue with the reforms of the “Popular Centre” because they increase the rights of the workers. In fact, that was one of the reasons of the “Revolution of Asturias” on October 6, 1936.
In the next months violence increased on some points of the country between right and left. It was this moment when Franco got into the country with the army violating the constitution of 1931 and throwing down the established government with the excuse of cleaning the country of violence, when there was only a few disturbs between groups of disorganized people. If you don’t believe, I’m only remembering what I learn when I was studying History on my Secondary School.
For this reason, if Spain would become into a republic it recovered its last legal form of government, before everything crashed down. So, I only left to say that, despite the arguments of Panda, on which I agree, the idea of becoming a Republic isn’t as stupid as many people think.
I totally agree with Mr.Excusas and Lollipop, in my opinion the continuity of the monarchy in Spain is assured but it is obvious that it is very difficult that Felipe could keep the feeling of affection that his father has in Spain. However, I think that Felipe has a better preparation so in spite of the fact that he has not the carism of his father he will become a very good king.