Romanian President Klaus Iohannis will receive the ‘Franz Josef Strauss’ Award from Germany’s Hanns Seidel Foundation, for the fight against corruption, the consolidation of the rule of law and of democracy, the website of the DPA news agency informs.
The Hanns Seidel Foundation is affiliated to the Christian Social Union (CSU) and its sibling party the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) led by German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Klaus Iohannis will receive the award in a ceremony that will take place on June 2 in Munich, Bavaria. The award is accompanied by a check for EUR 10,000.
“Ever since the start of his term in office, Klaus Iohannis fought against corruption, promoting the independence of the judiciary, and consolidating the rule of law and democracy, and Romania has registered sustainable improvements,” reads a Hanns Seidel Foundation communique.
On this occasion, Barbara Stamm, Speaker of the Bavarian Parliament, will give a laudatio. Horst Seehofer, President of the CSU and Germany’s Interior Minister, and Markus Soeder, the Premier of Bavaria, will give speeches.
The ‘Franz Josef Strauss’ Award is conferred for remarkable achievements in politics, business and society, art and culture, and also for the promotion of peace, freedom, rule of law, and democracy.
Former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, Hungarian Premier Viktor Orban, former American President George W. Bush, and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker are among the winners of this award.
Franz Josef Strauss (1915 – 1988) is renowned as the politician who – from various offices held at the level of Bavaria or of the German state – transformed Bavaria from a mostly agrarian region into a heavily-industrialised one, one of the richest regions of Germany.
In Romania, the Hanns Seidel Foundation has been present since 1992. Its most important objective is “the consolidation of Romania’s social and democratic development by supporting the political reform process in the state and society – at the national and local level, within the institutional sector, and at the level of Romanian civil society.”
