European Union (EU) awarded 2012 Nobel Peace Prize

The 2012 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the European Union (EU) “for over six decades contributed to the advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe”.

The Nobel Peace Prize for 2012
The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2012 is to be awarded to the European Union (EU). The union and its forerunners have for over six decades contributed to the advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe.
In the inter-war years, the Norwegian Nobel Committee made several awards to persons who were seeking reconciliation between Germany and France. Since 1945, that reconciliation has become a reality. The dreadful suffering in World War II demonstrated the need for a new Europe. Over a seventy-year period, Germany and France had fought three wars. Today war between Germany and France is unthinkable. This shows how, through well-aimed efforts and by building up mutual confidence, historical enemies can become close partners.
In the 1980s, Greece, Spain and Portugal joined the EU. The introduction of democracy was a condition for their membership. The fall of the Berlin Wall made EU membership possible for several Central and Eastern European countries, thereby opening a new era in European history. The division between East and West has to a large extent been brought to an end; democracy has been strengthened; many ethnically-based national conflicts have been settled.
The admission of Croatia as a member next year, the opening of membership negotiations with Montenegro, and the granting of candidate status to Serbia all strengthen the process of reconciliation in the Balkans. In the past decade, the possibility of EU membership for Turkey has also advanced democracy and human rights in that country.
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’s most important result: the successful struggle for peace and reconciliation and for democracy and human rights. The stabilizing part played by the EU has helped to transform most of Europe from a continent of war to a continent of peace.
The work of the EU represents “fraternity between nations”, and amounts to a form of the “peace congresses” to which Alfred Nobel refers as criteria for the Peace Prize in his 1895 will.
Oslo, 12 October 2012

A Nobel Prize for Idiots, Signifying Only Bias
(Bloomberg view) It is hard to imagine anything more wrongheaded than last week’s decision by the Nobel Committee to award its Peace Prize to the European Union. Until, that is, one is reminded of the frauds, terrorists, totalitarians and world- class idiots who have won the award over the past 20 years.
The fabulous ignorance necessary to pass over the organization that in reality brought peace to the European continent for the past six decades — the North Atlantic Treaty Organization — and to reward instead a soulless, corrupt, bullying, glorified customs union with pretensions to superpower, beggars belief.
The Nobel Prize was once a towering honor, worthy of the highest respect. Just over half a century ago, in 1953, Albert Schweitzer and General George C. Marshall both received it on the same day, while Winston Churchill picked up the prize for literature. But a rot set in with the political correctness of the 1990s. The (usually Labor Party-dominated) Norwegian parliament, the Storting, chooses the Nobel Committee, and in that decade the Peace Prize was won by Rigoberta Menchu Tum, the Guatemalan activist who fabricated her autobiography and supported murderous Communist guerrillas, and by Yasser Arafat.

12 October

Viewpoints: Experts comment on EU’s Nobel award
(BBC) The 2012 Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to the European Union for its work in promoting peace and stability in Europe. The award recognised the success of Franco-German reconciliation, the EU’s eastward enlargement and peace efforts in the Balkans.
Here several experts on European affairs give their opinions on the award, which comes at a time of tension amid the eurozone debt crisis
A Nobel for the Continent
(NYT Editorial) There is no question that the E.U. has come to symbolize the transformation of a continent mired for centuries in war to one that has embraced peace and human rights. And by opening its doors to newly liberated members of the Soviet bloc, the E.U. certainly helped to break down the division of East and West.
But when the Norwegian Nobel Committee selects the E.U. for a peace prize just when Europe is going through a major and potentially destructive crisis, it is obvious that, once again, the Norwegians have chosen to send a political message.
European Union wins Nobel Peace Prize
(Reuters) – 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.
Crisis-hit Europeans see cruel joke in EU Nobel
Across a continent where the EU’s policies are blamed for deepening the worst economic crisis in living memory, many Europeans said they were simply baffled by the prize. Others were outraged. … The irony of awarding the prize at a time when the EU is being pilloried in several European capitals, occasionally by crowds of rioters, was not lost on the Nobel Committee itself.