Romanian President Klaus Iohannis to receive ‘Emperor Otto’ prize for honoring European unification

Romanian President Klaus Werner Iohannis will receive the ‘Emperor Otto’ prize on Wednesday for his role in honoring European unification.

The award ceremony will take place in central Germany at the Magdeburg Dom (the Protestant Cathedral of the Saints Mauritius and Katharina), the oldest Gothic cathedral in the country and a symbolic place where Otto I, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire was buried over 1,000 years ago.

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas will deliver the Laudatio at an event attended by Reiner Haseloff, the prime minister of Saxony-Anhalt, Rainer Robra, the state minister and head of the state chancellory of Saxony-Anhalt, and Lutz Trumper, the mayor of Magdeburg.

The ‘Emperor Otto’ prize is awarded every other year to personalities and organizations that have special merits in Europe’s  unification and the promotion of European values.

Mr. Iohannis, a pro-European centrist has been president since 2014. The former mayor of the city of Sibiu, who is an ethnic German, was re-elected in December 2019, promising to reform and modernize Romania and clean it of the last vestiges of communism.

The award was first presented in 2005, on the occasion of the 1,200th anniversary of the city of Magdeburg.

Former figures who have received the award include German Chancellor Angela Merkel, former German President Richard von Weizsacker, former Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga, and Federica Mogherini, the former high representative for foreign affairs and security policy for the EU..

In 2015, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) was the first institution to be awarded this prize.

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