Hans Ringier Foundation honors Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas

Kaja Kallas received the "Europe Prize for Political Culture" from the Hans Ringier Foundation on Saturday, August 6, 2022, in Ascona.

"Kaja Kallas is a courageous woman - and she is much more than that: Estonia's prime minister stands for the courage of a small country in dangerous times. She pleads for determined resistance by the West against Putin's criminal war: negotiations with the dictator should be renounced 'until Ukraine is free'. Kaja Kallas speaks for a nation just over the size of Switzerland, which as Russia's immediate neighbor is particularly exposed to the Kremlin's aggressiveness - and has 50 years of violent repression by the Moscow regime behind it. The stateswoman and with her 1.3 million inhabitants of Estonia stand, if you will: on the front line for the freedom of the Western world," comments the President of the Hans Ringier Foundation Frank A. Meyer on the choice of this year's laureate.

Ignazio Cassis, President of the Swiss Confederation, paid tribute to the laureate in his laudation: "By clearly addressing injustice where it happens, by clearly speaking out when human rights are violated, you have become a weighty European figure. For a good year and a half as Prime Minister, you have stood up for our Western values, our common values. In a democracy, it is also about keeping the truth alive. If we want to do that, it takes the courage to unmask the untruth."

The award took place during the traditional "Dîner Républicain", which is held annually at the invitation of Frank A. Meyer at the Hotel "Castello del Sole" in Ascona.

The €50,000 Europe Prize is being awarded for the sixteenth time and has previously gone to Jean-Claude Juncker, Boris Tadić, Jürgen Habermas, Pascal Lamy, Jean-Claude Trichet, Hans-Dietrich Genscher, Donald Tusk, Wolfgang Schäuble, Heinrich August Winkler, Mario Draghi, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Margrethe Vestager, Sir Christopher Munro Clark, Zuzana Čaputová and Peter Sloterdijk.