Felipe & Letizia Meet With Cervantes Directors

Wednesday saw the Prince and Princess of Asturias in Comillas to meet with over 70 directors of the Cervantes Institute. The institute, which promotes the Spanish language and culture around the world, is having a five day meeting period where the directors are discussing ways to open more Cervantes schools in order to make Spanish a more important global tongue.

During the meeting, Crown Prince Felipe called Cervantes an “efficient, exemplary and irreplaceable” institution.  He also congratulated the directors for the “quality and prestige” the Institute has achieved in recent years. Felipe is quite familiar with it, as he has opened some schools in other countries as the heir to the Spanish throne. His wife, Crown Princess Letizia, has accompanieed him to the more recent openings.

So familiar are the two with the Cervantes Institutes, that they spent about five minutes with most of the over 70 directors before the meeting.

At the gathering, the discussion was about how to open the Institute in sub-Saharan Africa, where increasingly more people are studying Spanish. Other topics included how to further promote Spanish once Spain gets its turn to the presidency of the European Union, and using the language as a “language of peace, coexistence and understanding between peoples with different religions, customs, values and ways of seeing the world.”

Felipe expressed interest in the latest technology at Cervantes, plus its cultural activities used to educate students about the culture of Spain.

In 2005, the Cervantes Institute won the Prince of Asturias Award for its academic achievement.