Nobel Peace Prize for EU

We are the Nobel Peace Prize, 12 Oct.

by Reinhard Göweil

[…] The decision in Oslo has achieved one thing: The crisis-ridden EU under threat by nationalists sees itself united.

For that reason alone, the Nobel Committee itself deserves the Nobel Peace Prize. The Prize has reinvigorated a debate that got buried by the Euro: Who or what are we within the European Union?

In recent years, those questions seemed answered: Notoriously indebted, a quarrelsome bunch, a colossus with feet of clay. With such a decision, however, Europe is led back to its roots: a project of uniting peoples.

Such a unity means no borders, no barriers or persecution for anybody. In other words: Freedom. The founding principles of the EU are at the same level as the American Declaration of Independence. The latter defines the "pursuit of happiness" as an "inalienable right".

European citizens deserve nothing less. The USA has shown that progress means defining mutual ideals. Pragmatism might be wise in day-to-day business, a strategy with a preserving effect. The Nobel Prize has cleansed Europe as an ideal, having been contaminated previously with the Euro crisis. […]

 

Questionable Signalling Effect, 13 Oct.

by Alexandra Föderl-Schmid

Awarding the EU with the Peace Nobel Prize is a missed opportunity. […]

Those who have argued that the EU "significantly contributed to a peaceful development in Europe" would also have to recognise its failures: Such as in the 1990s in the Balkans, where the wounds of war are still visible. Only once the U.S. Americans intervened, the killing was put to an end. […]

The choice of the EU is vague and hard to follow. Or should it be understood as a consolation prize for the Europeans for their lesser role in the world, or for their increasingly causing problems, just as the recent meeting of the International Monetary Fund? The decision has to be questioned just like the decision of awarding the [Nobel Peace] Prize to U.S. President Barack Obama in 2009, who has still not closed the U.S. detention camp on Guantanamo. […]

For more, read "The Price of the Prize: The EU’s Nobel" in Nov. 2012 TVR.