Draghi honoured in New York: Europe's future built on its unity

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 by removing internally the barriers that limit our potential and by securing externally the resources that no European country can access on its own". These are the words of Mario Draghi upon receiving the prestigious award of the American Academy in Berlin at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

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

The institution "has always been a fundamental point of reference and friendship for political and cultural exchanges between first the United States and Germany and then the rest of Europe," Draghi noted. "The number and importance of the 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," the former ECB president explained, noting that 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 do not have the military capacity and security to counter'. That is why, Draghi noted, Europe must 'increase our defence capability by reducing the costly fragmentation of European spending'. "Despite the uncertainty that surrounds the coming months," Draghi concluded, "we Europeans will not lose sight of the fact that our future is built on our unity and that in choosing our friends on this journey towards a different order, there is a stable anchor that is our values and our faith in democracy, freedom and independence.