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Agency Report –
Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, is to receive the prestigious International Charlemagne Prize for services to Europe, organizers said on Wednesday.
The prize’s board of directors called the 66-year-old German politician “a strong voice for Europe in the world.”
The board said von der Leyen has defended European interests during a time of enormous challenges, including the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the coronavirus pandemic.
The organizers praised her decisive stance against Russia and achievements including the EU’s Green Deal, which aims to make the bloc climate-neutral by 2050.
Previous recipients of the award, handed out by the western German city of Aachen since 1950, include Winston Churchill, Pope Francis and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The prize is named after Charlemagne (748-814), whose empire extended over a large part of Western Europe. He often resided in Aachen, which is located near what is now Germany’s border with Belgium and the Netherlands.
Von der Leyen has been president of the European Commission since 2019, when she became the first woman to head the European Union’s executive – a job putting her in charge of 32,000 people and much of the bloc’s political agenda.
She was re-elected for a second term last year with the support of centrist, pro-European parties in the European Parliament.
A member of Germany’s centre-right Christian Democrats (CDU), von der Leyen previously held several ministry posts under former German chancellor Angela Merkel, including defence minister.
Born and raised in Brussels, she is a trained medical doctor and the daughter of the late Ernst Albrecht, a prominent CDU politician who was state premier of the north-western German state of Lower Saxony.
The last president of the European Commission to receive the Charlemagne Prize while in office was France’s Jacques Delors, who played a central role in the development of the EU single market and the introduction of the euro.
For the first time, the award carries a prize of €1 million ($1 million), which donors say should be used to fund pro-European projects.
The award ceremony traditionally takes place in late May in Aachen.
By Christoph Driessen and Doris Pundy
