The Diplomat
The Princess of Asturias surprised the audience yesterday during her first solo event at the 30th anniversary of the Cervantes Institute, when she asked the Secretary General, Carmen Noguero, a question about the impact of the pandemic on the situation of the institution’s workers abroad.
Doña Leonor learned about the activities that the Instituto Cervantes is preparing for the anniversary, and had the opportunity to learn about the digitalisation projects, as well as the new technological and digital tools of the Instituto Cervantes, in an explanation given by Carmen Noguero.
It was after this explanation that the Princess took the microphone to say, first of all to thank and praise the Cervantes Virtual Library tool, of which she said that, as an ESO student, she has used it several times, as have her classmates.
Doña Leonor then asked a question: “I have also heard that there have been Instituto Cervantes workers who have not been able to return to Spain since the pandemic began. I would like to know how they are doing, if their situation has improved and if they have been able to come”.
At 15 years of age, in what was her first public act, unaccompanied by her parents, the Princess of Asturias was greeted on her arrival by the First Vice-President of the Government, Carmen Calvo, and by the Director of the Cervantes Institute, Luis García Montero.
Once inside, she made the deposit in the Box of Letters, which consists of the Spanish Constitution whose first article was read by herself at the Institute itself, on 31 October 2018; and the copy of Don Quixote de la Mancha, the Cervantes Institute edition of the “Classics of the Royal Spanish Academy” collection, which was read by the Princess and her sister, the Infanta Sofia, on 23 April 2020.
