King Felipe VI infuriates the PP and Vox parties by questioning the conquest of America: "It's nonsense"

Barcelona / MadridHe Felipe VI's acknowledgment of the "abuses" of the conquest of America Vox, as expected, was not pleased, but neither was the PP. Both parties made this clear in their reactions on Tuesday to the monarch's words, with which he intended to make a gesture towards Mexico, which He has been asking for an apology from Spain for years. because of its colonial past. Although neither the right nor the far right have wanted to engage in direct confrontation with the head of state, both parties have distanced themselves from his position, which they have again attributed to the intervention of the Spanish government.

In the case of the People's Party, it was Alberto Núñez Feijóo himself who made their disagreement with Felipe VI explicit. When asked about his statements on EsRadio, the People's Party leader initially tried to downplay the significance of the matter, asserting that the king spoke in the context of an informal "conversation" and not in an "official statement or speech." But immediately afterward, he added: "To examine things that happened in the 15th century now in the 21st century is absurd." Feijóo, who has confessed to being "proud of the legacy" of the Spanish in America, has argued that the Catholic Monarchs brought "human rights, universities, and hospitals" to the indigenous peoples and has highlighted the "exceptional linguistic and cultural community" left by the conquest. However, although he hasn't wanted to be particularly harsh, he couldn't hide his disagreement with the monarch, who went so far as to admit that some of Spain's actions, viewed through the lens of current values, are not something to be "proud" of.

To its right, Vox has reacted publicly with a staunch defense of the conquest: "The Spanish enterprise in America was the greatest evangelizing and civilizing work in universal history, and that was done by the Spanish Crown," stated the far-right spokesperson in Congress, Pepa Millán, at a press conference. Abascal's party also avoided engaging in a clash with Felipe VI, but presented a historical interpretation that directly contradicts the king's. Sources within Vox, however, believe that the monarch's words are explained by the intervention of Pedro Sánchez's government. "We already know how the government uses the Crown," these sources explain. And they assert that, no matter what they say, "the [historical] truth is irrefutable." From the far-right party, as well as from the PP, reinterpret history and they ignore the violence perpetrated by Spanish colonizers against indigenous communities, the high mortality rate of these communities due to epidemics imported from Europe, or the deaths caused by the slave trade.

For Abascal's supporters, however, the king's words are nothing more than a demonstration of kidnapping of the monarch by the PSOE executiveThis is a theory that the far right has long been brandishing. MEP Hermann Tertsch was quite explicit on this point a few hours ago. "We are astounded," he stated in a tweet. "Many of us do not understand your formal and almost habitual adherence to the arguments of those who seek only harm and contempt for the history of Spain and the present of Spaniards," he added in a message addressed to the King, in which he defined the conquest as a "civilizing miracle full of generosity" and "service" to both Spaniards and indigenous peoples.