President von der Leyen accepts Czech and Slovak Transatlantic Award at GLOBSEC 2024; speech honors past recipients, reflects on transatlantic partnership values

Dear friends,

It is a great privilege for me to be here to receive the Czech and Slovak Transatlantic Award. Six years ago, you, Mr President, dear Petr, received this same award. And today, I am deeply honoured to join your ranks, together with my dear friend, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen. I am also deeply honoured to follow in the steps of great personalities who have been awarded this prize, like the late Madelaine Albright. She was a proud daughter of this beautiful city and country. She was chased out, first by the Nazis and then by the Soviets. She found her new home on the other side of the Atlantic. She became the first woman who served as US Secretary of State. America gave her freedom, and she dedicated her entire life to restoring and protecting freedom in her beloved Europe.

I think her story is symbolic for the story of our transatlantic partnership. It is built on personal connections and family ties, but it thrives because of the values we share. This is also my personal experience of the transatlantic bond. I remember very well June 2014 – at that time, I was Defence Minister in Germany – when the Iraqi city of Mosul fell to the so-called Islamic State, when terror shook our societies. We teamed up with our friends in the United States and Canada. Together, we pledged that we would do everything in our power to defeat this threat to our common way of life. And that is what we did over years – regardless of the political colours in power on both sides of the Atlantic. I remember early 2017, the Trump administration had just taken office. Jim Mattis, whom I had never met before, was now the Secretary of Defence in the Pentagon. And my friends, I can still hear his voice, when he called me in those first days and said: ‘Madam, I want you to know we are good friends and allies.' I cannot tell you how touched I was.

And I remember ten years later, on the day of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, when Joe Biden called me in Brussels for a VTC, it took us no time to agree on our common response to Putin's war. Time and again, Europe and America have stood at each other's side, and on the right side of history. And this must not change, whoever will sit in the Oval Office as of January next year.

But to preserve our partnership, some things have to change. We do not live in the post-World War era anymore when Europe was on its knees after the Nazis wreaked havoc across our continent. Today's Europe is standing on its feet. Therefore, it has to contribute more fully to transatlantic security and prosperity. This is in our mutual interest. On both sides of the Atlantic, we share an interest in Europe taking greater responsibility for its own security. We share an interest in securing raw materials, critical technologies and global trade routes. We share an interest in building an integrated transatlantic economy with resilient value chains that stretch out from both sides of the Atlantic. Europe has a strong stake in our transatlantic partnership, and we will make it even stronger.

This is why I thank all of you who are here today. I see this prize not only as a celebration of our transatlantic values but as an encouragement to keep believing in the transatlantic partnership, to make it fit for a new era. Together, we can keep the torch of freedom and friendship alive.

Long live Europe and the transatlantic partnership, and I thank you very much for this prestigious and impressive award.