Mario Draghi honoured with the Charlemagne Prize
ECB President Mario Draghi once pledged to save the euro. He has now received the Charlemagne Prize. Federal Chancellor Merz sees him as a role model in the current time of crisis.
Aachen (dpa) – Italian politician and former President of the European Central Bank (ECB) Mario Draghi has been awarded the Charlemagne Prize at Aachen Town Hall in recognition of his contributions to European integration. In his keynote speech, Federal Chancellor Friedrich Merz emphasised that Draghi had stabilised the euro at a time of great danger. “You took a risk – it could have failed.” But, he said, it had paid off. “Today, the euro is uncontested.” At the height of the euro crisis in 2012, Draghi, now 78, famously declared that “whatever it takes” would be done to safeguard the common currency.
Merz said that Europe today was once again facing unprecedented pressure, adding that Draghi had pointed the way forward two years ago with the report on European competitiveness that bears his name.
In his speech, Merz called for a “fundamental modernisation” of the EU budget in order to strengthen Europe as an independent power in a changing world. He criticised the fact that the budget was still compiled “almost like a centrally planned economy” over a seven-year period, with more than two thirds of the money going towards “redistribution and subsidies”. Merz said he wanted to use the budget primarily to strengthen European sovereignty in a world in which great-power politics by states such as the US, China and Russia play a defining role.
