Graduates and Parents,
Together with my husband, the King, I am also very grateful for the honour that Georgetown University confers on me today.
As I receive this Honorary Degree and I see in. front of me this new class of young undergraduates, I am reminded of ah that has passed in the world since I finished my own studies.
We had just emerged from a most bitter World War, a war that had left Europe completely destroyed and politically divided. Our hopes for the future were then very limited indeed. It would have been very difficult to imagine that our world would recover from its ashes, and that we would achieve the stability and prosperity that we enjoy today.
If this is what the previous generations have achieved, it is your duty as young students, and also our own duty, to improve on these accomplishments and, with courage and responsibility, to aim for a fairer world ruled by tolerance, dialogue and freedom.
This is the hope your parents, friends and teachers hold, as we assemble in the campus of this beautiful University sharing your joy in this solemn occasion.
Thank you very much for the Degrees you bestow on us today. Aware of their importance and meaning, we receive them as a valuable encouragement in our daily work.
Muchas gracias.