Draghi awarded in New York: the future of Europe built on its unity

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Europe faces many challenges to preserve its prosperity and independence and in doing so it must not “lose sight” that its future is built on its unity. This also means a “foreign economic policy that addresses vulnerabilities with a single strategy, both internally removing barriers that limit our potential and externally securing resources that no European country can access alone”. These are the words of Mario Draghi receiving the prestigious American Academy in Berlin award at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

“It is very gratifying for me to receive this honor from an institution whose founders include President von Weizsacker, Henry Kissinger and Richard Holbrooke,” said the former ECB president during the 25th American Academy Gala in Berlin during which he was awarded together with Marina Kellen French and Julie Mehretu.

The institution “has always been a point of reference and fundamental friendship for political and cultural exchanges between the United States and Germany first and then the rest of Europe”, observed Draghi. “The number and importance of changes that Europe must undertake to preserve its prosperity and independence are unprecedented in the history of the Union which, in turn, is unprecedented and has contributed to the longest period of peace on our continent”, explained the former president of the ECB, observing how in the more fragmented “new world”, “Europe has become strategically and economically more vulnerable. In a world where the economy is increasingly used as a geopolitical weapon, Europe’s openness has become a strategic vulnerability.

We face physical threats, which we lack the military capacity and security to counter.” For this reason – Draghi observed – Europe must “increase our defense capacity by reducing the costly fragmentation of European spending”. “Despite the uncertainty that surrounds the next few months – concluded Draghi – we Europeans will not lose sight of the fact that our future is built on our unity and that in choosing friends on this journey towards a different order, there is an anchor stable that are our values ​​and our faith in democracy, freedom and independence”.