The second and final day of King Felipe and Queen Letizia’s State Visit to Sweden came just a few hours after the glittering State Banquet.
Thursday, 25th November began with separate engagements for King Felipe and Queen Letizia. The King held an early meeting with Swedish entrepreneurs, which was followed by the opening of the Entrepreneurial Seminar Sweden-Spain.
During the opening, King Felipe spoke a few words, in which he highlighted how the relationship between Sweden and Spain is resting on innovation and economic competition, among other things, and the importance of the private sector in creating connections.
Queen Letizia and Queen Silvia on their arrival at the Bernadotte Library (photo by Casa de S.M. el Rey)
Meanwhile, Queen Letizia, accompanied by Queen Silvia, attended a language symposium at the Bernadotte Library, inside the Stockholm Royal Palace. The seminar focussed on language, literature and translation, and was organised by the Cervantes Institute and the Institute of Sweden, both of which are the entities that promote each country’s culture around the world.
King Felipe was then joined by King Carl XVI Gustaf for a visit to the Stockholm Technology Institute, a leading institution in the research to combat several of the major challenges faced currently by countries around the world: climate change, the future delivery of energy, urban environments and the bettering of quality of life for a population that has an increasingly higher average age.
King Felipe, Queen Letizia and the Swedish royals then reunited to attend a lunch offered by the City of Stockholm. The meal was held in the Golden Hall of the City of Stockholm building; the room is familiar to most people as it is the room where the Nobel banquet is normally held.
King Felipe is presented with the golden key of the City of Stockholm (Casa de S.M. el Rey)
For the lunch, the Spanish King and Queen were joined by King Carl XVI Gustaf, Queen Silvia, Crown Princess Victoria, Prince Daniel, Prince Carl Philip and Princess Sofia. During the ceremony, King Felipe received the golden key of the City of Stockholm, a symbolic gesture that indicates friendship between an authority and a particular city, before he and Queen Letizia signed the book of honour of Stockholm.
Following the meal, King Felipe and King Carl XVI Gustaf visited the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences, where they took part in a conference held by Spanish and Swedish experts on the transition to clean energy sources, such as wind, hydro and solar.
King Felipe was then joined by Queen Letizia for an event that wasn’t on the original agenda: a meeting with members of the Spanish Scientists of Sweden Association, during which they handed out the first edition of the Margarita Salas prizes. Margarita Salas was a scientist who passed away last year; her work was mostly focussed on molecular biology. The prizes are organized under the patronage of the Spanish Embassy in Sweden and the Ramón Areces Foundation, and will be handed out once a year, alternating between the categories of Physics, Mathematic and Engineering, Biomedical Sciences and Chemical and Environmental Sciences.
The King and Queen of Spain hosted the Swedish Royal Family at a reception to conclude the State Visit (Casa de S.M. el Rey)
To conclude their historic State Visit, King Felipe and Queen Letizia offered their Swedish hosts a reception at the Spanish Embassy in Stockholm, where they had held the first event of the trip, the reception with members of the Spanish community in Sweden. Present to say their goodbyes were King Carl Gustaf, Queen Silvia, Crown Princess Victoria, Prince Daniel, Prince Carl Philip and Princess Sofia. A reception that put an end to a whirlwind State Visit, forty years in the making.
The King and Queen of Sweden later accompanied their guests to the airport where an official farewell ceremony took place before King Felipe and Queen Letizia headed back to Madrid.
