Speaker Pat Cox on the laureate:

‘The concept of the bond of brotherhood and universal fraternity has extended Dr. Riccardi’s research, publications and activities to embrace the themes of Euro–African relations and Inter Faith Dialogue. In his recent publication “Convivere”, “Living Together”, he focuses on an art of co-existence that neither abandons our identity nor fears what makes us different, nothing that the world has become multi-polar offering a pathway to the co-existence of civilisations. This is, he says, “the fruit of political realism and religious and human hope.” It is the antithesis of Huntingtons widely published theory of the Clash of Civilizations and an altogether more hopeful perspective, better placed, in my view, to inform and animate the European Union’s emerging Common Foreign and Security Policy in this sensitive but vital policy domain.’