Princess Leonor and Infanta Sofía participated this Wednesday, July 14, in the closing ceremony of the
A Tree for Europe
campaign
to support the fight against climate change. They have been accompanied by 35 young people of different nationalities from the European Union. This act, co-organized by the Office of the European Parliament in Spain and Casa Real, consisted of planting six trees, five beech trees and one yew, in the protected natural area of Hayedo de Montejo de la Sierra (Community of Madrid), according to includes a statement from the European Parliament.
This is the first solo act of the princess and the infanta, without their parents with them.
The heir to the throne had her first act alone on March 24, when she visited the Cervantes Institute, which this year celebrates its 30th anniversary.
Then Leonor deposited two books - the copies of the Constitution and
Don Quixote
that she herself used in what were her first two readings in public - in the so-called Caja de las Letras (the vault of the bank that formerly occupied the building), in the one that guards the legacy of great personalities of Spanish culture.
But until now the two young women, aged 15 and 14, had not gone out alone and together to any act.
Infanta Sofía, planted a tree in the Hayedo de Montejo, on July 14, 2021.Ballesteros / EFE
This, in fact, had been scheduled for June 5, but a great storm that fell on Madrid forced the planting to be postponed, and the act has moved almost five weeks. This activity comes after the princess received her future schoolmates in Wales in Zarzuela on Tuesday during an audience with the Board of Trustees of the Spanish Committee of the United World Schools Foundation. A special act in which her father joked with her and with the assistants. The young woman will go to the United Kingdom at the end of August.
This campaign comes at the initiative of the youth association Team Europe, picking up the witness of the appeal in August 2019 of the President of the European Parliament, David Sassoli, who asked mayors from all over Europe to plant at least one tree in their municipalities to help in the preservation of our planet.
Leonor and Sofía de Borbón, upon arrival at Hayedo de Montejo for their first solo act.Chema Clares / GTRES
According to the statement, the fight against climate change is one of the priorities of the European Union, which has been marked with the approval of the so-called European Green Deal as one of the main milestones of this legislature, and in which the commitment of the Royal House with environmental issues.