The XXVI Bookstore Congress, organized by CEGAL (Spanish Confederation of Booksellers' Guilds and Associations) opened this morning at the Baluarte Conference Center and

Auditorium of Navarra in Pamplona, with the 'full capacity sign hung since mid-February', as CEGAL's president, Miguel Iglesias, recalled. In addition to 240 booksellers, publishers, and distributors from all over Spain are attending the event.

In her speech, Rebeca Esnaola, Navarra's Minister of Culture, celebrated the fact that the theme of the Congress is 'El future es el libro' (Books are the future) and that "Navarra is a land that loves and enjoys books. This is reflected in the data that place us as the third Community with more readers in the State, with an index that almost reaches 70%. And, according to the Barómetro de Hábitos de Lectura y Compra de Libros en España 2023, the main place to buy books is still the bookstore".

 And she reminded that ensuring the right of citizens to read is a major challenge that we face, on the one hand, as a society; on the other, as an economic sector; and, of course, also as institutions.

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