Spanish King Felipe and Queen Letizia presided over the meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Cervantes Institute at the Royal Palace of Zarzuela in Madrid. They were joined by Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.
The Instituto Cervantes is the public institution created by Spain in 1991 for the promotion and teaching of the Spanish language and for the dissemination of Spanish and Latin American culture. Its headquarters are in Madrid and Alcalá de Henares, the birthplace of the writer Miguel de Cervantes, while the Institute’s centers are spread over four continents.
They also presented the “Premio Ñ 2021” Award to Barbara Fuchs, a professor of Spanish and English at the University of California. King Felipe is the honorary President of the Cervantes Institute.
The director of the Cervantes Institute presented the annual report of the Cervantes Institute.
Afterward, King Felipe and Queen Letizia hosted a lunch for the Trustees of the Cervantes Institute and the Ibero-American Ambassadors accredited in Spain.
King Felipe formally addressed the gathering, “The Queen and I are especially happy to see you here, gathered around our greatest common heritage, the Spanish language. The Cervantes Institute was created just 30 years ago to spread our shared language around the world, as well as the pan-Hispanic culture and in the co-official languages of Spain. In 2021, almost 493M people will have Spanish as their mother tongue. More than 591M people in the world already understand each other in Spanish, which is the 2nd mother tongue in the world by a number of speakers, and the 3rd in the global tally of speakers only after English and Chinese Mandarin. The Spanish-speaking community has grown by almost 70% since the launch of the Instituto Cervantes. More than 24M Spanish students will soon join those figures.”
For the day, Queen Letizia wore her Navy Hugo Boss Ibiaska Blouse with Hugo Boss Vrima Belted Pencil Skirt.
Letizia was wearing her navy Magrit pumps
and carried a Magrit Hawa clutch.
Her Karen Hallam ring was not missing either.
