German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been named as this year’s recipient of a prestigious international award, with organizers lauding her “great moral leadership” in Germany and pivotal role in tackling the crises buffeting Europe. The Dutch-based Roosevelt Foundation says Merkel will receive the International Four Freedoms Medal at a ceremony in April. The foundation praised Merkel for her role in the European financial and migrant crises, for leading efforts to bring peace to conflict-torn Ukraine and for showing “great moral leadership as chancellor of all Germans regardless of faith and ethnicity.”
Previous winners of the award include U.S. Presidents Harry S. Truman and John F. Kennedy, South African leader Nelson Mandela and former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
Four Freedoms Award
The Four Freedoms Award is an annual award presented to those men and women whose achievements have demonstrated a commitment to those principles which President Franklin Delano Roosevelt proclaimed in his historic speech to Congress on January 6, 1941, as essential to democracy: freedom of speech and expression, freedom of worship, freedom from want, freedom from fear.
Did You Know???
- Angela Merkel is a former research scientist who has been the Chancellor of Germany since 2005.
- Having earned a doctorate as a physical chemist, Merkel entered politics in the wake of the Revolutions of 1989.
- Merkel has been described as the de facto leader of the European Union. She was also ranked as the world’s second most powerful person by Forbes magazine in 2012 and 2015, the highest ranking ever achieved by a woman
- In December 2015, she was named as Time magazine’s Person of the Year, with the magazine’s cover declaring her to be the “Chancellor of the Free World.”
