“Like no one else, Mario Draghi is synonym with the economic strengthening of Europe, and his 2024 ‘Draghi Report’ is the strategy required to give the European Union competitiveness, growth and stability”: that’s why Mario Draghi, former President of the European Central Bank and former Prime Minister of Italy, received the International Charlemagne Prize in Aachen today. At the Mass that is traditionally officiated before the awards ceremony, Bishop Helmut Dieser paid homage to the winner: “Europe does not lack values, it lacks determination in defending them, and therefore it lacks consistency and timeliness. It urgently needs dynamic, influential people like you who have revived the entire European project and have powerfully pushed it forward”. “This is not just a dangerous time. It is also a wake-up call”, Mario Draghi began as he started to speak. “Because the forces that are testing Europe today are doing something that decades of peace and prosperity have failed to do: they are pushing Europeans to acknowledge, once again, what they have in common and what they are prepared to build together”. “All across our continent, Europeans are proving they want Europe to take action. They want the EU to defend their freedom, prosperity and solidarity. And they keep passionately supporting the values that make Europe worthy of being built and that make it unique today. Now, the job is responding to their trust with courage and proving that Europe can, again, turn a crisis into union”.