I would like to welcome you to the Coronation Hall of our City Hall and to the award ceremony of the International Charlemagne Prize of Aachen 2023 to H.E. Volodymyr Selensky, the President of Ukraine, and to the Ukrainian people.
Ladies and gentlemen, Prime Minister Morawiecki,
I would like to welcome the President of the European Parliament, Ms. Metsola, and the President of the Commission, Ms. von der Leyen, on behalf of the institutions of the European Union, and you, the President of the Bundestag, Ms. Bas, Chancellor Scholz, Minister of State Roth and the President of the Federal Constitutional Court, Professor Harbarth, on behalf of the constitutional bodies of the Federal Government.
I welcome Your Excellencies, the Ambassadors of Bulgaria, Croatia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, the United States of America, Latvia, France, Ukraine and Poland, as well as all members of the Consular Corps.
On behalf of our state of North Rhine-Westphalia, I would like to welcome Minister President Wüst, President of the State Parliament Kuper, the members of the state government and the members of the state parliament, as well as the former Minister Presidents of our state Jürgen Rüttgers and Armin Laschet.
A warm welcome also to all members of the German Bundestag and the European Parliament.
It is a great pleasure for me to be able to welcome the numerous former winners of the Charlemagne Prize among us: Mrs. Dalia Grybauskaite and Martin Schulz as well as last year's laureates, Mrs. Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, Mrs. Veronica Tsepkalo and Tatiana Khomich, who represents her sister Maria Khalesnikava here.
A warm welcome to the representatives of the churches and faith communities, and especially to the Ukrainian Nobel Peace Prize laureate Olexandra Matviychuk.
I would like to welcome the members of the committees of our Charlemagne Prize, including former Lord Mayor Jürgen Linden as Chairman of the Charlemagne Prize Board of Directors.
Since the attack on Ukraine in February 2022, which violated international law, we have been talking about a "turning point" in Europe.
The Ukrainian people, who have been fighting for their sovereignty since the end of the Soviet Union, who have always clearly committed themselves to the liberal and democratic values of the European Union and who have been striving for membership of the European Union since the 1990s, are being hit hard by the consequences of this turning point.
This brutal Russian war of aggression against Ukraine has been going on for over a year now. And many of us have already become accustomed to it: to the daily horror stories, to arms deliveries, to ever new threats from the Russian side.
But as much as this news has become part of our everyday lives, it remains our duty to ensure that the people who are directly affected by this war are not forgotten. It is our duty to constantly remind ourselves that in our Europe, an entire people is being denied a life of peace and freedom. An entire generation is being deprived of its childhood, its youth, its prospects and its dreams. That is why we should remind ourselves, especially today, that there are individual fates behind each of the horror stories.
On the occasion of the awarding of the Charlemagne Prize to you, H.E. Selenskyj, and to the Ukrainian people, I would therefore like to focus for a moment today on the situation of some people away from the big political stage, in Ukraine and also here in Aachen - and give them a face and a voice.
Two of these people are Anna Kysil and Julia Piech, who are here today. Last year, they both immediately recognized the great tasks that lay ahead of us and, together with other committed citizens, founded the association "Ukrainians in Aachen". Both women have been living in Germany for a long time, both in constant fear and worry for their parents, siblings and friends in Ukraine. Their lives have changed completely since the war.
With great passion, they helped to find accommodation for Ukrainian war refugees, collected and transported humanitarian aid and called for demonstrations.
This has now become much more: The association organizes language courses, is committed to cultural exchange and wants to preserve Ukrainian history, culture and tradition as an anchor for the refugees and at the same time bring them closer to the people of Aachen.
Thanks to the sustained efforts of its founders, "Ukrainians in Aachen" is now a reliable partner for all stakeholders - the association has helped to make our city a safe haven for war refugees right from the start.
One of them is Yuliia Hryniova. With her three children and her husband, she was one of the first Ukrainian refugee families to come to Aachen - I would like to extend a particularly warm welcome to her today. The story of Yuliia Hryniova and her family is representative of countless others.
Forced to flee their homeland once before due to the annexation of Crimea in 2014, the family was able to build a new home and a new life in Butsha near Kyiv - until their story was cruelly repeated by Russia's renewed invasion. Once again, she and her children had to leave their home in a hurry. But the next terrible news reached them while they were still on the run. While trying to leave Butscha, which had been occupied in the meantime, Yulia's parents' car was shot at by Russian soldiers. Her mother died, her father survived seriously injured.
And although Yuliia has experienced immeasurable suffering and her family's future prospects are still extremely uncertain, she has been tirelessly involved in humanitarian aid since her arrival in Aachen and advises people who want to flee Ukraine.
Together with her sister Oksana, she founded the "Sokil" initiative in Ukraine, which evacuates old and disabled people from the front line and has already helped many people to find a new home and survive.
With the help of the "Ukrainians in Aachen" association, the Hryniova family has integrated here, learned a new language, found an apartment and school places for their children. However, her husband has now returned to help locally. Like him, the whole Hryniova family has not given up on Ukraine. Because it is still their home to which they want to return.
Many Ukrainians feel the same way as Yuliia Hryniova and her family. That's why, after providing acute support from the outset, our special task was to offer people prospects beyond the war, in addition to the safe haven mentioned above. That enable them to enjoy a life of freedom again - here with us or in their home country.
Together with countless organizations, initiatives, associations and volunteers, we have created these prospects - and will continue to do so in the future. Side by side and in direct exchange with Ukrainians. Be it at local level, as just described, at national and international level or at municipal level as part of a solidarity-based town twinning.
We are currently building such a partnership with Chernihiv, a city in the north of Ukraine which, in addition to its current population and infrastructure, has another parallel to Aachen - albeit to the Aachen described by the founding fathers of the Charlemagne Prize in their 1949 proclamation:
"After two world wars, in which the border location of our city had a particularly detrimental effect and in which the honest efforts of several generations to overcome imaginary national antagonisms proved to be in vain, our city, which has sunk into ruins, is struggling for its right to live."
Just like Aachen back then, Chernihiv is largely destroyed today. We are therefore entering into this partnership not only to express our unconditional solidarity in this way, but above all to support Chernihiv and its inhabitants in their efforts to rebuild their city as a sustainable city - and to make it their home again. Our concrete collaboration will start tomorrow with the representatives from Chernihiv present here.
That the possibility of returning home still exists at all, that families like Yuliia Hryniova's can still dream of a future in freedom in their homeland, that people - whether in Ukraine, throughout Europe or here in Germany - still have any hope at all of an end to this conflict, would probably not be possible without the man whom we are awarding the Charlemagne Prize together with the Ukrainian people today: the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyi.
"Selenskyj shows courage, leadership ability, tactical empathy and he demonstrates a new, clear and unmistakable political style," reads the citation, among other things. And further: "He is a pillar and also a role model for his people; he stands against hopelessness and despair, ... and for confidence, the goal of a free, independent and sovereign Ukraine that is part of the European family of nations. Selensky gives Ukraine, but also the European Union, the strength to believe in this ideal. In this respect, he is also a role model for all Europeans to reflect on European ideals and values."
Everyone sitting here today is demonstrating by their presence that Europe can be relied upon. As I have just described, we are assuming our responsibility by preparing together for the "time after".
Because just as you, President Selenskyj, hold "your" people together and give them strength and confidence in the greatest crisis, you not only show us with your personality and determination how we can stand up together for Europe and freedom, but you also give us confidence that you will find a way together with us in the same way to give the Ukrainian people a peaceful and democratic future.
We stand by your side,
on the side of the Ukrainian people!
Thank you very much!
27.07.2023