Barcelona wants to become the epicenter of peace promotion in Europe. The Barcelona City Council, in collaboration with the Barcelona Provincial Council and the Pau Casals Foundation, announced this Wednesday the creation of a new International Peace Prize, which will recognize projects and initiatives of international scope that have “contributed significantly and transformatively to the promotion of peace, non-violent conflict resolution, and the defense of human rights.” The prize, endowed with 300,000 euros, will be awarded every two years, and the first gala is scheduled for early 2027, in an event held at the Auditori de Barcelona. The mayor, Jaume Collboni, pointed out that the initiative has been in development for more than two years, at a time when “no one could have imagined that today it would be so necessary to talk again about multilateral dialogue and the culture of peace,” referring to the war of the United States and Israel against Iran.
At the event, held at the Barcelona City Council, the second deputy mayor and vice president of the Barcelona Provincial Council, Maria Eugènia Gay; the general director of the Pau Casals Foundation, Jordi Pardo; and the Chilean senator Isabel Allende also participated. The prize is born within the framework of the celebration of the 150th anniversary of the birth of Pau Casals, remembered by Pardo as a “defender of freedom, democracy, human rights, and personal liberty.” The prize, which will be biennial, will be endowed with 300,000 euros exclusively intended for the organization responsible for the initiative or project. According to Gay, the selection will be made by the institutions organizing the prize through a social impact report, which will be presented during the award ceremony of the first edition.
The distinction will have two governance bodies: a steering committee and an advisory council. The first, made up of representatives from the Barcelona City Council, the Provincial Council, and the Pau Casals Foundation, will be responsible for awarding the prize based on criteria such as contribution to peace, social impact, and innovation. The sustainability of the project, its community roots, the defense of human rights, and its international projection will also be valued. The prize is integrated into the annual municipal budget, with the possibility of increasing resources through collaborations with public and private entities.
Collboni emphasized that the initiative seeks to be “the contribution of the city of Barcelona to peace.” Therefore, he recalled during the event a “trajectory of international reference of the city” in promoting the culture of peace with examples such as the massive demonstrations against the Iraq War in 2003 and the two recent departures of the Global Summit Flotilla with humanitarian aid to Gaza. The mayor also recalled the initiatives of the former mayor Pasqual Maragall, who promoted the Euro-Mediterranean Intergovernmental Conference in 1995 and made the city the permanent seat of the Union for the Mediterranean. He also recalled that the Catalan capital has recovered District 11 – a budgetary structure integrated into the municipal organization chart – to “strengthen Barcelona’s cooperation with cities in Palestine.”
The event also included the participation of writer Isabel Allende and, remotely, the Princess of Jordan and president of the Anna Lindh Foundation, Rym Ali, as well as the co-president of Nihon Hidankyo (organization awarded the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize), Shigemitsu Tanaka, all members of the prize’s Advisory Council. During her speech, Allende emphasized that “peace is not only built through great treaties and agreements but also in the democratic culture of society, where cities project values that transcend daily coexistence and reinforce respect for human rights.”
The presentation of the event comes in a week when Barcelona will host three political forums on the future of multilateralism. The main one will be the meeting of the Global Progressive Mobilization, a left-wing platform promoted by President Pedro Sánchez that will include the participation of Isabel Allende and Brazilian President Lula da Silva on April 18 and 19 at Fira Barcelona. Additionally, the city recently hosted leaders and experts at the European Pulse Forum.
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