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Spain

Princess Leonor receives standing ovation at Princess of Girona Awards

On Thursday, the entire Spanish Royal Family was in Barcelona to oversee the Princess of Girona Awards. 

Due to the global shutdown, the 2020 ceremony was cancelled, and so this year the family handed out both the 2020 and the 2021 prizes. 

The award ceremony took place at the CaixaForum in Barcelona, a cultural centre belonging to “la Caixa” Foundation and located only a short distance away from Albeniz Palace.

The 2020 Prize Winners were:

Guillermo García López, for Arts and Literature. 

Pepita Marín Rey-Stolle, for Entreprise. 

Ruben Darío Costa Riquelme, for Scientific Investigation.

Guillermo Martínez Gauna-Vivas, for Society.

Boyan Slat, for International.

The 2021 Prize Winners were:

María Sánchez, for Arts and Literature.

Lucía Goy Mastromiechele, for Entreprise.

César de la Fuente Núñez, for Scientific Investigation.

Ousman Umar, for Society.

Juan David Aristizábal, for International.

© Casa de SM el Rey

Before the award ceremony, Their Majesties and Their Royal Highnesses held a meeting with the prize recipients from past editions of the awards at the Albeniz Palace, the monarch’s official residence in the Catalonian capital. 

The family coordinated their looks in different shades of blue, which, besides being the colour of Asturias, is also the colour of the Princess of Girona Foundation. 

Their Majesties and their daughters arrived at Albeniz Palace from its gardens and talked with some of the assistants to the reception while still observing social distancing rules. 

After the reception, the King and Queen took part in a meeting of the Patronage and the the Council for the Princess of Girona Foundation. 

The actual award ceremony started a few short minutes before 8 pm Barcelona time with a skit from comedian Juan Carlos Ortega that focused on the ceremony’s theme: “Here, the present.”

The award ceremony was conducted by Carlos Franganillo and saw an alternating of live performances and interviews, and small trailers explaining the reasons why the winners were chosen for the prizes. The live performances included an interview with Dr Frances Arnold, Nobel Prize in Chemistry, in 2018. 

After the Princess of Asturias and Girona handed out the prizes during a lineup in which the Royal Family was joined by the Vice Prime Minister Carmen Calvo and the President of the Congress Meritxtell Batet, the winners gave a short reflection each. 

The Princess then took to the stage for her speech, which began in Catalan and during which she highlighted the role the younger generation played during the pandemic. His Majesty then got up on stage and joined the long applause and standing ovation that followed his daughter’s speech, on which he joked (“It’s not because she’s the Princess – I mean, that as well – but it’s because I agree with everything she said that I was clapping so much”). 

In his speech, the King also remarked on the role the youth played during the pandemic, as well as recognising the employment situation for young people in Spain, which is what creates a feeling of discouragement amongst them. He then switched to Catalan and spoke about the role of the foundation in promoting new leaders within the younger generation.  

The family changed outfits, and while Queen Letizia stayed in the blue family and the King and Infanta Sofìa dressed in neutral colours, Princess Leonor opted for a red dress that made her stand out on the stage and among the public, with red obviously being one of the two colours of the Catalan flag. 

The Princess of Girona Awards are focused on young people who show promise in their respective fields; moreover, the international prize is opened every year to a young person from anywhere in the world who has shown particular leadership. 

Each prize winner is awarded a sum of 20.000€ and a statue designed especially for the occasion by 2017 Arts Laureate Juan Zamora. 

The Princess of Girona Foundation was created in 2009 from an accord between the Girona Chamber of Commerce, the “la Caixa” Foundation and the Gala-Salvador Dalì Foundation with the aim to promote talent and progress among the youth. His Majesty presided over it until his proclamation in 2014, at which point his daughter inherited the title of Princess of Girona and the Honorary Presidency of the Foundation. 

The family’s last visit to the Catalonian capital for this occasion was in 2019, and it had some extremely tense moments, including violent demonstrations from independentists a short distance away from the awards ceremony location. Protesters shouted vile insults against the family and even burned pictures of His Majesty. However, this year, it seems that the situation was a bit calmer, despite tension between the Catalonian political establishment and the government over pardons for Catalonian politicians and the will from Community President Peré Aragonés to hold a referendum for the independence of Catalonia.