BERLIN (AP) — The Washington-based Fulbright Association says its 2018 prize for international understanding will go to German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
The organization said Tuesday it decided to award the prestigious prize to Merkel “for her remarkable, compassionate leadership and her strong commitment to mutual understanding, international cooperation and peace.”
Merkel, 64, has been Germany’s leader since 2005 and a central figure in international diplomacy and crisis-resolution efforts in Europe and beyond. In her most controversial decision, she allowed large numbers of asylum-seekers into Germany in 2015.
She was named Time magazine’s “Person of the Year” in 2015 and earlier this month Harvard University announced she would be its commencement speaker next year.
Merkel declined to seek reelection this month as leader of her party, the Christian Democratic Union, but has said she will remain chancellor until the next federal election, set for 2021.
She will be given the Fulbright award at a ceremony in Berlin on Jan. 28.
The award was established in 1993 and was given annually until 2004 and biannually since then. The most recent recipients:
- 2016, Richard Lugar, former U.S. senator who now runs a nonprofit foundation focusing on international policy topics including food security and the nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
- 2014, Hans Blix, Swedish diplomat and head of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
- 2012, Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders)
- 2010, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
- 2008, Desmond Tutu
- 2006, Bill Clinton
- 2004, Colin Powell
