"With credibility, ability and passion, Juncker is "a propeller" and "a thinker of the European integration process": the Committee of the Charles The Great Award gave this statement as the reason for the international 2006 Award which is given every year by the German city of Aachen to people who have distinguished themselves for promoting European unity. On the occasion of the prize-awarding ceremony, a few events will be held tomorrow and the day after tomorrow; on Thursday 25th May in the Town Hall, the prime minister of Luxembourg, Jean-Claude Juncker, will address his "lectio magistralis" to the local and regional authorities, the delegates of supranational organisations and some earlier winners of the award. According to the Mayor of Aachen, Jürgen Linden, Juncker played a very special role in the period that followed the French and Dutch voters’ rejection of the EU Constitution and in resuming negotiations about the EU long-term budget. The Charles The Great Award is the most famous award given for integration: established in 1950, in the past it was given, among others, to Konrad Adenauer, Jean Monnet, Alcide De Gasperi, Robert Schuman, Winston Churchill, Roy Jenkins, Salvador de Madariaga, Simone Veil, Vaclav Havel, Jacques Delors, Bronislaw Geremek. In 2004, it was given to John Paul II and the then president of the European Parliament, Pat Cox; in 2005, the award was won by Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, president of the Republic of Italy.
