“Saving Spain From Catalan Split Is Felipe VI’s First Task”

To this article we say: Letting Catalans Choose Their Own Destiny is Felipe VI’s First Task

 

Article published at: Bloomberg BusinessWeek – June 3rd.

Among the new Spanish monarch’s most pressing challenges will be holding his kingdom together.

Crown Prince Felipe, 46, who will become Felipe VI after his father Juan Carlos completes the abdication process set in train yesterday, takes the throne just as 7.6 million of his subjects in the region of Catalonia – the first contributor to Spain’s gross domestic product – prepare for a vote on independence this year. Polls suggest the result hangs in the balance.

“The prince needs to talk of integration,” Jose Antonio Gomez Yanez, a professor at the Carlos III university in Madrid, said in a telephone interview. “He has been trying but so far his message hasn’t had much resonance — his position has been secondary to the king’s.”

Full article here: http://www.businessweek.com/news/2014-06-02/saving-spain-from-catalan-split-is-felipe-vi-s-first-task