Brussels, 19/05/2004 (Agence Europe) - Pat Cox, outgoing president of the European Parliament is to be awarded on 20 May in Aix-la Chapelle, the Charlemagne Prize. According to a press release, this has been awarded twice this year to the Irish Liberal and Pope John-Paul II for their outstanding contributions to securing the historic EU enlargement which took place on 1 May. the prise was awarded by the former president of France and the European Convention Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, who has also been one of the prize winners, together with Jean Monnet, Winston Churchill, Jacques Delors, Tony Blair and Bill Clinton.
The board of directors responsible for awarding the prize said that since the first months of his presidency, Pat Cox had taken unprecedented initiatives to show that the European Parliament was a force to be reckoned with for Union enlargement. The board also pointed out that Cox had invited 147 members from the parliaments of the ten Member States, as well as those from Bulgaria and Romania to a debate in November 2002 at a plenary on enlargement. In the first months of his presidency, Pat Cox had visited all the candidate countries, in order to ensure political leaders and their peoples of the full support of the app for their accession to the EU, the board indicated. The latter also noted that these visits were also a reaction to the scepticism displayed by western Europe to this enlargement. In its daily life under the leadership of Pat Cox, the European Parliament demonstrated its desire to involve as rapidly as possible the candidate countries in the policies of the EU by inviting them to attend national parliaments of the European Parliament as observers.