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Kleist Award 2023 to be presented to Sweden and Finland
We are pleased to announce this year's winners of the Ewald von Kleist Award. With this award, the Munich Security Conference has been honoring leading personalities in security politics who have made an outstanding contribution to international understanding and conflict resolution since the award's inception in 2009.
We are especially pleased to announce today the winners of this year's Ewald von Kleist Award: Following Jens Stoltenberg and Angela Merkel in the previous two years, this year we will be awarding the prize to Sweden and Finland for their historic decision to apply for NATO membership in response to the Russian war of aggression.
We are grateful that for Sweden, former Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson, who started the process, and current Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, who is continuing the process, have agreed to jointly accept the award. The Finnish side could not be better represented either, with President Sauli Niinistö and Prime Minister Sanna Marin, both of whom have played absolutely central roles in the debate surrounding the application for NATO. The Prime Minister of Denmark, Mette Frederiksen, will give the keynote speech. We hope that the award ceremony will send a renewed signal of the unity of the transatlantic alliance.