Former European Central Bank President and ex-Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi has been awarded the International Charlemagne Prize of Aachen, as the EU grapples with how to stay relevant in a harsher global order.

Organizers announced the 2026 winner Monday, citing Draghi’s “historic services” to European integration and his renewed role in shaping the bloc’s economic future. He will be formally awarded at a ceremony on May 14.

The timing of the award is deliberate. Europe risks becoming “a pawn in the game of other powers” unless it can secure its sovereignty, the prize committee warned, adding that competitiveness and economic strength are essential for a sovereign Europe.

“Mario Draghi holds a key role in strengthening Europe’s economy, and his 2024 Draghi Report outlines the plans needed to ensure competitiveness, growth, and stability in the European Union,” it said.

The Draghi report, which calls for “radical change” to EU decision-making, sends a clear message: Europe can no longer rely on crisis management alone. “This new world is not kind to us,” Draghi warned last year. “It does not wait for slow, collective rituals.”

The prize committee urged EU governments and the Commission to implement Draghi’s recommendations “immediately,” framing the report as a blueprint for survival rather than another Brussels white paper.

The Charlemagne Award honors individuals or institutions that have made an outstanding contribution to European unity, peace and integration. Recent winners include Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian people, Chief Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt and the Jewish communities in Europe, and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

Draghi was an inevitable candidate, ever since he pledged to do “whatever it takes” as ECB president at the height of the sovereign debt crisis in 2012. The pledge is often credited with ensuring the survival of the single currency.

A year after stepping down as ECB president 2019, Draghi, 78, was tapped by President Sergio Mattarella to form a “government of national unity” following the collapse of Italy’s Giuseppe Conte-led government.  His success leading Italy through the Covid-19 crisis and engineering an economic rebound was so striking that The Economist named Italy its 2021 “Country of the Year,” crediting Draghi’s leadership.