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Commissioner of the Year
- Jacques Barrot, transport commissioner - for his work on airline safety and security
- Neelie Kroes, competition commissioner, and Charlie McCreevy, commissioner in charge of the internal market - for confronting protectionism masquerading as economic patriotism
- Franco Frattini, commissioner for justice, freedom and security - for seeking a measured response to migration and terrorism
- Viviane Reding, commissioner for media and information society - for taking the side of consumers and forcing a cut in mobile phone roaming charges
- Olli Rehn, commissioner in charge of enlargement - for sustaining the hopes of countries aspiring to join the EU, while maintaining pressure for reform
MEP of the Year
- Josep Borrell, president of the European Parliament - for a serious attempt to reform the Parliament, to create a more focused, lively and political assembly
- Evelyne Gebhardt, German Socialist, and Malcolm Harbour, UK Conservative - for salvaging the services directive
- Sophia in ’t Veld, Dutch Liberal, rapporteur on the Passenger Name Record (PNR) agreement with the US - for holding out for the protection of civil liberties
- Martine Roure, French Socialist - for defending immigrants’ rights and campaigning for their better treatment in Europe
- Terry Wynn, UK Socialist - for campaigning to get national finance ministers to take responsibility for the proper spending of EU funds under shared management
Statesman of the Year
- José Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission - for concentrating the work of his Commission on delivering benefits to citizens
- Angela Merkel, German chancellor - for brokering an agreement on the EU’s multi-annual budget
- Stjepan Mesic´, president of Croatia - for being prepared to brave popular opposition and hand over fugitive general Ante Gotovina to international justice
- Romano Prodi, Italian prime minister - for giving the lead to the rest of Europe in contributing to a peacekeeping force in Lebanon
- Wolfgang Schüssel, chancellor of Austria - for restoring harmonious relations in the European Council after a difficult year for the EU
Diplomat of the Year
- Aldo Ajello, the EU’s representative to Africa’s Great Lakes region - for exerting European influence in the Democratic Republic of Congo, resulting in this year’s elections
- Jean-Marc de La Sablière, France’s ambassador to the United Nations and diplomatic advisor to President Jacques Chirac - for his work drafting United Nations Security Council resolution 1701, to end fighting between Hizbullah and Israel
- Christian Schwarz-Schilling, high representative to Bosnia - for weaning the country off international rule and demanding that Bosnia’s political class rise to the challenge of transformation
- Javier Solana, EU high representative for foreign policy - for tenaciously pursuing a European line in negotiations with Iran to abandon its nuclear programme
- Erkki Tuomioja, Finland’s foreign minister - for steering EU foreign ministers towards an agreed position on Lebanon, from an unpromising start
Campaigner of the Year
- Colin Firth, UK actor - for playing an adventurous role as champion of the developing countries in negotiations to open up world trade
- Monica Macovei, Romania’s justice minister - for driving through tough laws tackling corruption and reforming the judiciary, improving her country’s readiness to join the EU
- Cecilia Malmström, Swedish Liberal MEP - for mobilising EU citizens to campaign for a single seat for the European Parliament
- Hubert Sauper, Austrian filmmaker - for challenging, in his documentary ‘Darwin’s nightmare’, assumptions about the shape and direction of the global economy
- Yvonne Watts, UK citizen - for setting a precedent at the European Court of Justice obliging her national health service to pay for a medical operation in another member state Monica Macovei, Romania’s justice minister - for driving through tough laws tackling corruption and reforming the judiciary, improving her country’s readiness to join the EU
Non-EU Citizen of the Year
- Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority - for his efforts to create a government of national unity
- Kofi Annan, secretary-general of the United Nations - for mobilising the international community to end the fighting in Lebanon and put in place a peacekeeping force
- Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation - for showing that well-focused private foundations have much to teach government agencies about giving aid to Africa
- Alan Greenspan, retired chairman of the Federal Reserve Board - for presiding over a long period of financial stability
- Orhan Pamuk, Turkish author - for encouraging Turkish society to confront painful aspects of its past and for contributing to the soul-searching debate between tradition and modernisation
- Tariq Ramadan, Swiss author - for his explorations of Muslim and European identity
Journalist of the Year
- Sara Daniel, Le Nouvel Observateur - for brave and incisive reporting from Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon
- Nils Mulvad, Danish journalist - for a persistent campaign to oblige the Danish government to disclose details on who gets what from the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy
- Guido Olimpio, security correspondent of Corriere della Sera - for research into illegal CIA activities in Europe carried out in the name of the fight against terrorism
- William Samii, Radio Free Europe - for his reporting on Iran, free of stereotypes
- Martine VandeMeulebroucke, Le Soir - for her work on the plight of immigrants reaching Europe
Achiever of the Year
- Andrej Bajuk, Slovenia’s finance minister - for winning approval for his country to join the eurozone, the first of the new EU states to do so
- Franz Beckenbauer, chairman of the Germany 2006 World Cup organizing committee - for accomplishing a peaceful and well-run World Cup, in which Europe was the winner
- Bernard Devauchelle and Jean-michel Dubernard, French surgeons - for performing the first face transplant in the world
- Nicolas Sarkozy, leader of the centre-right UMP party and French interior minister - for putting forward the clearest vision for the future of Europe yet to emerge from France
- Jean-Claude Trichet, president of the European Central Bank - for having consolidated the reputation of his institution in difficult economic times
Business Leader of the Year
- Josef Ackermann, chief executive of Deutsche Bank - for raising Deutsche Bank’s game by moving into global investment
- Wulf Bernotat, chief executive of E.ON - for maintaining the right of his company to expand across national borders in the face of protectionism
- Sir John Bond, chairman of HSBC Holdings - for propelling HSBC’s growth through a series of acquisitions in America and Asia
- Lakshmi Mittal, chief executive of Mittal Steel - for winning the battle for Arcelor and leading consolidation in the steel industry
- Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis, co-founders of Skype - for changing the face of telephony
European Voice is proud to announce the nominations for ‘EV50, the Europeans of the Year 2006’. The aim of the EV50 awards, now in its sixth year, is to honour the politicians, campaigners, diplomats, journalists, artists or business leaders who have had the most significant impact on debates and decision-making in Europe.
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