Angela Merkel dedicates UN prize to German refugee workers

With the award, the UNHCR recognizes Angela Merkel’s role at the height of the Syrian refugee crisis in 2015 and 2016. The ex-chancellor quoted the German author Erich Kästner in her acceptance speech: “There is nothing good unless you do it.”

Many have tackled

At that time, many people in the municipalities and communities, as well as many volunteers, helped to overcome the challenges, said Merkel: “In my view, this honor is therefore primarily due to the countless people who got down to work at the time, to whom it is thanks that we coped with the situation, that we made it.”

She shared the $150,000 prize money equally among four regional recipients who received awards at the same time, including a doctor in Iraq and a woman who has been helping refugees in Costa Rica for more than 50 years. Merkel’s words at the time, “We can do it,” became a dictum that the Italian head of the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), Filippo Grandi, often repeated in German.

Recognition also for all of Germany

“The award is a recognition of the ex-Chancellor because she was in government and ultimately made the decisions,” said Grandi. “But it’s also a recognition of what all of Germany has done to take in more than a million people.”

At the time, Merkel’s decision was controversial within the Union parties, but also in German society. She repeatedly clashed with the then CSU leader Horst Seehofer on the refugee issue. Your refugee policy met with criticism, especially in the eastern German states. The Nansen Prize is the highest award from the UNHCR, which has been taking care of the needs of refugees for more than 70 years. It goes to people who have made a special contribution to refugees.

The prize is named after the Norwegian researcher and diplomat Fridtjof Nansen. He was the first high commissioner for refugees at the forerunner of the United Nations, the League of Nations, from 1920 to 1930 and was therefore awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1922. Angela Merkel did not run for the Bundestag elections last year after 16 years as chancellor. She wants to publish her memoirs in autumn 2024.

haz/AR (dpa, epd)