Merida – Crown Prince Felipe awarded Friday the Charles V Prize for European unity to Spanish public servant Javier Solana, a former NATO secretary-general and long-time foreign policy chief of the European Union.
Felipe used the event, held at Yuste Monastery, to deliver a "message of conviction and hope in Europe," 25 years after the entry of Spain and Portugal into the project of continental unity, and urged the continued building of a Europe that has brought peace, freedom and prosperity.
Among those attending the presention of the prize, awarded by Yuste's European Academy Foundation, were Spanish Culture Minister Angeles Gonzalez Sinde and former Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez, as well as erstwhile Portuguese President Jorge Sampaio.
Past recipients of the prize include Gonzalez, Mikhail Gorbachev and Simone Veil, the first woman to hold the European Parliament's presidency.
Solana, a "universal Spaniard" and "convinced European," according to the prince, embodies the dedication to European unification and the promotion of its values that distinguished Charlemagne and Charles V.
In the prince's opinion, Solana has performed his duties with "particular sensitivity to the problems, crises and conflicts afflicting the world."
Solana, for his part, said that the EU is "a constant journey of enhancement, expansion and reform, a process that must be adapted to the world's changing panorama in every moment of our time here, but always making more and more progress with its integration."
Born in Madrid in 1942, Solana is a physicist by training who was elected to the Spanish Parliament as a Socialist in 1977, serving as foreign minister under Gonzalez after the 1982 elections.
On Dec. 5, 1995, Solana became NATO's secretary-general.
He later served as the European Union's foreign policy chief for a decade.
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