Friday, October 12th 2012 - 17:03 UTC

Strong support from the Nobel Prize for a battered European Union

The European Union won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for promoting peace, democracy and human rights over six decades in an award seen as a morale boost as the bloc struggles to resolve its economic crisis.

Nobel Committee chairman Thorbjørn Jagland: “from a continent of wars to a continent of peace”

The award served as a reminder that the EU had largely brought peace to a continent which tore itself apart in two world wars in which tens of millions died.

The EU has transformed most of Europe “from a continent of wars to a continent of peace,” Nobel Committee chairman Thorbjørn Jagland said in announcing the award in Oslo.

“The EU is currently undergoing grave economic difficulties and considerable social unrest. The Norwegian Nobel Committee wishes to focus on what it sees as the EU most important result: the successful struggle for peace and reconciliation and for democracy and human rights,” he said.

Jaglund praised the EU for rebuilding Europe after World War Two and for its role in spreading stability after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

The debt crisis afflicting the single currency zone has brought economic instability to several member states, and rioting has erupted on the streets of Athens and Madrid as austerity measures have bitten hard.

The prize, worth 1.2 million dollars, will be presented in Oslo on Dec. 10. The decision by the five-member panel, led by Jagland who is also Secretary-General of the Council of Europe, was unanimous.

The EU won from a field of 231 candidates including Russian dissidents and religious leaders working for Muslim-Christian reconciliation.

Conceived in secret at a chateau near Brussels, what is now the European Union was created by the 1957 Treaty of Rome, signed with great fanfare in the Italian capital's 15th century Palazzo dei Conservatori.
 

17 comments Feed

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1 Ayayay (#) Oct 12th, 2012 - 05:27 pm Report abuse
Good choice. People still got to earn their membership to keep the peace.
2 Fido Dido (#) Oct 12th, 2012 - 05:27 pm Report abuse
What a garbage. This shows how those idiots at the “Nobel Committee” are out of touch wih reality. Those people make me sick.
3 LEPRecon (#) Oct 12th, 2012 - 07:46 pm Report abuse
@2 - Fido

Jealous much?
4 TipsyThink (#) Oct 12th, 2012 - 08:11 pm Report abuse
réally the Genéral Commanders of Iraq/Afghanistan mílitary operátions deserve to take this prize not élse .
5 emerald (#) Oct 12th, 2012 - 09:03 pm Report abuse
Europe Union should deserve Economy Prize not Peace Prize.
çözemediler.
6 malen (#) Oct 12th, 2012 - 09:10 pm Report abuse
jajaajajaj europe an example of peace??????????????????? maybe because they never stopped killing people, now outside europe, they kill in Africa and Middle east instead between them, so they look “saints” inside
An award for sth that happenned 60 years ago??????????? Late to give
And please tell me the list of the 10 countries that sell more arms in this world.....europe, perhaps is there first???
and third they gave the prize for encouraging democratic values outside EU zone..........how? invanding and killing, but it was for peace, so bancátela, they are peaceful, dont you see???
And Norway is european, so what can you expect.......
And what a loud of false propaganda, of sth they arent...... they have more blood in their closets than many other regions and the solutions are always violent disfrazadas of peace............killing is always a crime
7 emerald (#) Oct 12th, 2012 - 09:24 pm Report abuse
6 mln
The slaughter might be a Natural Selection method ..why not .
8 Furry-Fat-Feck (#) Oct 12th, 2012 - 09:57 pm Report abuse
But I though all of you Malvinistas respected the Nobel institution. Afterall, when all those Nobel Laureates came down on the Malvinista side of the Falkland Islands debate you told us that we had to listen to them.

All of a sudden this whole nobel prize thing is mere trash in your eyes, meaningless. You lot are as bipolar as your Persident.
9 malen (#) Oct 12th, 2012 - 10:07 pm Report abuse
The Obama peace nobel prize it was also a joke
Peace prizes seems to be complicated to give
What has done Europe last year for peace??????Nothing really
10 Fido Dido (#) Oct 12th, 2012 - 11:04 pm Report abuse
@2 - Fido

Jealous much?

LEPRECON, dumb f'er.
11 yosoy (#) Oct 13th, 2012 - 01:14 am Report abuse
Wierd timing... maybe in 1975 it would have been apt... but today? Selecting a single currency for such a diverse region? economic FAIL. and now a political fail of grand proportions in Spain and Greece. Really, the irony.
12 LEPRecon (#) Oct 13th, 2012 - 09:05 am Report abuse
@10 -Fido

Yup, you're definitely jealous. LOL

To be honest, what does the Nobel peace prize actually mean? Nothing! So why are you jealous?
13 DennisA (#) Oct 13th, 2012 - 11:02 am Report abuse
The EU didn't “win” anything, any more than Al Gore and the IPCC “won” anything. This award is politics pure and simple.
14 Dr. Jeorbbels (#) Oct 13th, 2012 - 01:04 pm Report abuse
Any mention of the death of the little bloke, moustache, bad haircut and stiff arm salute? Any mention of George Marshall re- Marshall Plan? Any mention of its replacement The Mutual Security Plan? Didn't these lead to peace and security in Europe? The Nobel Committee have got it badly wrong this time.All the Nobel Committee have done is give themselves a self congratulatory pat on the back!
15 briton (#) Oct 14th, 2012 - 11:30 am Report abuse
We will just say this,

Tis not European union that has kept the peace in Europe for the last 70 odd years,

,,,,,,,,,,,,,
NATO has kept the peace
Full stop.

The might EU was paralysed with indecisions over the Balkans, was it not,

Until the United States, urged by great Britain and back by the French, that put a force in.
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
The only thing the mighty EU had kept over the 70 years,
Is our bloody money.??
.
16 Guzz (#) Oct 14th, 2012 - 11:55 am Report abuse
Briton
Dropping bombs is not “peace”, think you got that part wrong :)))
17 briton (#) Oct 15th, 2012 - 12:47 pm Report abuse
guzz
where does it say Dropping bombe,

that part no exist, so i right Again.lol

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