From 6:30 p.m., the Campoamor Theater in Oviedo hosts the Princess of Asturias awards ceremony, presided over by Kings Felipe and Letizia and their daughters. Timothy Garton Ash, winner of Social Sciences, has compared the year in which Princess Eleanor was born, “a moment of unprecedented expansion of freedom, peace and European integration”, with the current time of crisis. “Everything achieved since 1945 is today threatened in its very existence,” he stated.
Previously, in an emotional speech, American astronaut Christina Koch, Princess of Asturias Award for Concord 2026, received the award with a call for unity. He recalled that the Artemis mission to the Moon in which he participated managed to bring people together regardless of “where they came from, their political ideas, their education or their economic resources.” Given this, he asked: "Do not wait for the next mission to the Moon to realize that your peers are your crewmates."
Previously, the writer Julian Barnes has made a critical speech about the progress of art. “I no longer think that the arts are progressive and that each evolution improves the preceding one,” he stated.
Timothy Garton Ash began his speech by addressing Princess Leonor, specifically the year she was born. “Being born in Europe in 2005, as you were, meant arriving in the world at a time of unprecedented expansion of freedom, peace and European integration,” the historian told him, “never, over the centuries, have we been so close to realizing the vision of a united and free Europe as in that golden moment, around the year 2005.”
That's what remains of that promise of Europe, an idea of the future that, for the Oxford professor emeritus, has been buried by crises and threats. “Everything achieved since 1945 – that Europe that many members of your generation, Your Highness, took for granted – is today threatened in its very existence,” he stated. The British essayist has given three ideas to the princess and the world to, in his words, continue defending “a free Europe.” "A deep commitment to the search for truth [...]. Recover trust in liberal democracy [...]. Thirdly: tiquitaca. The lesson that football offers to Europe is that success requires both individual genius and sophisticated teamwork," he concluded in reference not only to Spanish sport, but also to Messi, who heeded his words.
American astronaut Christina Koch collects the award. The jury has recognized the first woman to participate in a trip to the Moon, with numerous records in her history, for her “effort at personal improvement” and “contributing to raising the frontiers of humanity.”
The writer Julian Barnes, one of the last exponents of the Granta generation, collects the award. The jury highlighted "his status as an extraordinary narrator and essayist, gifted with humor, irony and a 'melancholic optimism and a joyful pessimism', in his own words."
The footballer Leo Messi has been awarded by the jury for "his dazzling talent, his exceptional sporting career and his formidable and continued solidarity work to promote access to education and health care for the most disadvantaged children."
Collecting the award are David Klenerman, Shankar Balasubramanian and Pascal Mayer, who receive the award for a technology that has been key to understanding in real time how outbreaks such as hantavirus or covid work.
Patti Smith, American singer-songwriter, positions herself on stage to collect the Princess of Asturias Award for the Arts 2026. Smith is considered a “cultural reference of the last five decades.” According to the Foundation, Smith crosses “the limits of what is strictly musical to become a multidisciplinary and iconoclastic communicator.”
Studio Ghibli, winner of the Communication and Humanities Award, is one of the most “iconic animation studios in the world”, as characterized by the Princess of Asturias Foundation. The award is collected by the president of the studio, Kenichi Yoda.
Timothy Garton Ash, historian, journalist and essayist, takes the stage. Ash is recognized by the Foundation as one of the leading experts on the transformation of Europe in the second half of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st.
Collecting the award on behalf of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault are Nils Kristen Sandtrøen, Norway's Minister of Agriculture and Food; Lene Krøl Andersen, executive director of the Nordic Genetic Resource Center; and Stefan Schmitz, CEO of the Global Crop Diversity Trust.
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault (Norway) was inaugurated in 2008 with the objective of safeguarding the diversity of seeds of food crops, to guarantee a future supply of resources in the event of loss, whether due to natural disasters, human conflict, policy changes, mismanagement or any other circumstance.
The American astronaut has received the 2026 Princess of Asturias Award for Concord with a call for unity. “A mission of everyone and for everyone,” Koch described his expedition around the Moon in April of this year. Upon embarking on that trip, the astronaut realized that “the repercussions of human spaceflight go far beyond the borders of the country that launches the rocket,” and that the mission had managed to bring people together regardless of “where they came from, their political ideas, their education or their economic resources.”
“It was necessary to send people around the Moon for the message to be convincing enough and for love to triumph,” Koch reproaches, and ends his speech with a lesson: “Don't wait for the next mission to the Moon to realize that your peers are your crewmates.”
Julian Barnes receives the 2026 Princess of Asturias Award for Letters award, and with it, he makes a critical speech about the progress of art. “The arts can give the impression of progress, although they often express new versions of old truths,” criticizes the writer. Barnes takes advantage of the stage to reproach that everything around him has progressed, such as “science, technology, society, politics,” and that “the same should have happened with the arts.” “I no longer think that the arts are progressive and that each evolution improves the preceding one,” judges the writer.
According to the Princess Awards jury, Barnes has been awarded in this category for his “status as an extraordinary narrator and essayist, endowed with humor, irony and a melancholic optimism and a joyful pessimism.” A cheerful pessimism very characteristic of his speech.
On the Awards stage, right in front of this year's winners, is a selection of former winners. Among them, the cyclist Miguel Indurain, the editor Marisol Schultz, the scientist Juan Luis Arsuaga, the astronaut Pedro Duque, the photographer Cristina de Middel, the physicist Mar Capeáns, the soccer coach Luis de la Fuente and the president of the Red Cross, María del Mar Pageo.
The president of the Princess of Asturias Foundation, Ana Fernández Álvarez, has praised the “firm commitment to society and the ability to develop critical thinking” of the winners of the 2026 Princess of Asturias Awards. In the speech with which Álvarez opened the awards ceremony, she stated that the awards recognize “the capacity of people and institutions to imagine, and contribute, to collective life.” In this sense, it has recognized the work, example and dedication of the winners as a “constant guide to face the difficulties and challenges of the moment, to reflect and to propose solutions that serve as a guide to the new generations.”
The 2026 Princess of Asturias Awards ceremony has just begun at the Campoamor Theater in Oviedo with the performance of the Spanish anthem by a pipe band. The winners enter through the central aisle to their seats, located to the right of the presidency.
Kings Felipe and Letizia, Princess Leonor, Infanta Sofía and Queen Emeritus Sofía have already arrived at the Campoamor Theater in Oviedo, where they have greeted the authorities. The ceremony is about to begin.
The Princess of Asturias Awards held their first edition in 1981, although at that time they were called the Prince of Asturias Awards. The name change came in 2014 to adapt to the change in the Royal Family after the abdication of Juan Carlos I in June of that year. The categories have also undergone changes, which began with six. In 1986 the Concord award was added and in 1987 the Sports award. Since 1981, the Foundation has awarded 482 awards to individuals (370) and institutions (112). Compared to the 296 men awarded in these 45 years, only 74 women have been recognized in any of the categories. Although in the year of its inauguration there was already one woman awarded—María Zambrano, with the Princess of Communication and Humanities—, another was not distinguished again until 1988, when Carmen Martín Gaite shared the Prize for Literature with José Ángel Valiente.
The women recognized this year are, both Americans, astronaut Christina Koch, with the Concord Prize, and Patti Smith, with the Arts Prize.
The president of Studio Ghibli, Kenichi Yoda, traveled the distance between the Reconquista hotel and the Campoamor Theater in the car with a Totoro stuffed animal that was greeting the Asturians gathered there from the car sale. With the doll he also walked the blue carpet.
Outside the Campoamor Theater, around the dark blue carpet that welcomes guests, a crowd of curious onlookers and a parade of 860 bagpipers along Uría Street, the main street in Oviedo, welcome the royal family and the winners. In the nearby Plaza de la Escandalera, giving a touch of reality at this exceptional moment for the Asturian capital, and where the republican demonstration usually congregates, the housing encampment is set up that is replicated in so many cities in Spain.
The winners will enter the Campoamor Theater accompanied by the fanfare Ayres for cornetts and sagbuts, by the English composer John Adson. This work was recorded live in the theater itself, during other performances, by members of different Spanish and European orchestras.
On both sides of the stage of the Campoamor Theater are the sculptures of Joan Miró, which represent the spirit of the Princess of Asturias Awards with very characteristic symbols of the great universal artist. The sculpture weighs eight kilos. Each one of them is made by hand and numbered in the same workshop where Miró himself worked. The artist once transferred the rights to this sculpture in favor of the Princess of Asturias Foundation.
The Princess of Asturias Awards are awarded each year in eight categories: Arts, Social Sciences, Communication and Humanities, Concord, International Cooperation, Sports, Scientific and Technical Research, and Letters.
They reward the scientific, technical, cultural, social and humanitarian work of people, institutions, groups of people or institutions at the international level.
Members of 20 bagpipe bands and 14 folk groups from different towns in Asturias have walked the streets of Oviedo until they reach the Campoamor Theater. In total, 860 people participate in this Parade, also accompanied by regional dancers.
