The Royal Household has this Friday published an agenda for the Royal Family which includes no official activity "with press coverage" between 2nd and 8th October, the week following the 1st October Catalan referendum.
Felipe VI's last official public appearance was on Thursday, when he opened an exhibition in Madrid about the scientific and artistic heritage collected in the museums of the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. He didn't speak at the event, which he was accompanied at by the Secretary of State for Education, the mayor of Madrid and five university rectors.
This week, the king has read speeches at the opening ceremonies of the new Palace of Congresses in Palma de Mallorca and the 29th International Summit of Business Think Tanks as well as speaking off-the-cuff as the businessperson Plácido Arango was awarded the 4th Enrique V. Iglesias prize. On none of these occasions did he refer to Catalonia, either explicitly or implicitly.
The absence of public commitments for next week will make it easier for the king to fulfil his duties as head of State depending on how events evolve, although the Royal Household preferred to not comment on this point.
The organisers of the 20th National Congress of Family Business announced on 19th September that Felipe VI was scheduled to speak at their opening event in Toledo on Monday 2nd, although the palace never confirmed this. His name was withdrawn from the provisional program in the last few days.
The last time the head of State mentioned the situation in Catalonia was on 13th September in the cathedral in Cuenca, during the awards ceremony for the National Culture Prizes. He did so expressly, with a message in which he guaranteed that the Spanish Constitution "will prevail over any rupture" of the "coexistence in democracy".
"The rights that belong to all Spaniards will be preserved" in the face of "those who place themselves outside of constitutional and statutory law", the king said on that occasion, his first public speech since the Parliament of Catalonia had passed the Referendum Law aiming to protect the 1st October vote.
The "democratic coexistence" achieved in Spain "after many sacrifices" and thanks to "the generosity of everyone" is only possible "if the laws that regulate and organise it are noted and followed by the citizens and the institutions; if the rights and liberties of the citizens are guarded and respected by the public powers," he warned.
"As such, facing those who place themselves outside of constitutional and statutory law and break society, I'm sure that the rights which belong to all Spaniards will be preserved and that the freedoms of all the citizens will be guaranteed and protected," the king went on to say.