SALON

Friday, Oct 12, 2012 3:50 PM UTC

Responses to EU’s Nobel Peace Prize

Some say the choice is "nonsense," others see it as an important morale boost for the beleaguered union

By

Topics: Nobel Prize, Austerity, Europe, Debt, Eurozone, European Union, European Financial Crisis, Nobel Peace Prize,

Responses to EU's Nobel Peace Prize (Credit: (Wikimedia))

The Nobel Peace Prize this year has been awarded to the European Union for promoting and upholding “60 years of peace in Europe.” The (often controversial) award has again produced a mixed response, as critics question the honor in the midst the eurozone crisis, as austerity, unrest, unemployment and rising fascism plague member states.

The reasoning behind the award selection seems both transparent and politics-driven. Thorbjorn Jagland, the former Norwegian prime minister who is chairman of the panel awarding the prize, has openly expressed concern about the European Union’s future in light of the debt crisis and attendant upheavals.

“There is a great danger … We see already now an increase of extremism and nationalistic attitudes. There is a real danger that Europe will start disintegrating. Therefore, we should focus again on the fundamental aims of the organization,” said Jagland.

And indeed, following Jagland’s logic, a number of commentators have praised the Nobel choice as an important boost and encouragement for the beleagured 27-nation bloc.

Heather Grabbe, director of the Open Society Institute in Brussels, told the BBC:

This is a big confidence boost for the EU at a moment when confidence is at a very low ebb because of the euro crisis. It’s an important reminder that European integration is a peace project. In the Balkans reconciliation is all under the EU’s auspices – were it not for the EU they wouldn’t be where they are today. The EU is the only body able to bring a whole range of peace-building measures to such a troubled region – the US couldn’t do that. France and Germany no longer go to war to resolve economic difficulties. In previous centuries they did, but now they negotiate through the European Council – much better. Reconciliation is about exorcising the ghosts of history. It’s easy to forget that now, we take peace for granted.

Jan Techau, head of the Carnegie Europe think tank, told the Guardian that the award “gives the EU a morale boost at a time when it has been shaken to its core … It is a reminder to Eurosceptics to consider the real merits of the union they so despise, and it is an appeal to Europe to finally become a serious strategic player in the world.”

Meanwhile, others have derided and decried the choice, echoing responses in 2009 when a newly minted President Barack Obama won the Peace Prize. Eurosceptics have been swift to register scoffs. “I think that the whole thing is a nonsense,” the U.K.’s Independence Party leader Nigel Farage told the BBC. “If anyone is suggesting that a democratic, stable, post-war Germany would have invaded France again with the intention of smashing it to smithereens, I would suggest they are misreading history.”

Martin Callahan, a British member of the European Parliament quoted in The New York Times, situated his critiques in the ongoing eurozone crisis:

The Nobel Committee is a little late for an April Fool’s joke,” said Martin Callanan, a British member of the European Parliament and the leader of the European Conservatives and Reformists group… The E.U.’s policies have exacerbated the fallout of the financial crisis and led to social unrest that we haven’t seen for a generation… Presumably, this prize is for the peace and harmony on the streets of Athens and Madrid.

And while some supporters of the decision insist that recent decades of relative peace in Europe justify the prize, some commentators question whether the European Union should be credited with this historical achievement. The New Statesman’s legal blogger, David Allen Green, noted:

The European Union is rather good at taking the benefit of the work of others and at promoting its own mythology.  But strictly speaking, the European Union has existed only since 1993.  Its (main) predecessor organization, the European Economic Community (established by treaty in 1957, some twelve years after the Second World War) was primarily a trading organization for some (but not all) of the countries on the western side of the Cold War.  An important entity without any doubt, but certainly not the sole or even leading source of human rights and peace in Europe after 1945.

… Indeed, to say anything about peace in Europe for sixty years ignores the conflicts which have occurred: not least the savage wars which affected the former Yugoslavia for ten years after 1990.  “Europe” is not the same as the “European Union”, however many people seem to forget this.

As Carnegie Europe’s Techau told the Guardian, “The peace prize has always been a political one.”

 

Natasha Lennard is an assistant news editor at Salon, covering non-electoral politics, general news and rabble-rousing. Follow her on Twitter @natashalennard, email nlennard@salon.com. More Natasha Lennard.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 14 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
Judge tells lesbian couple to separate or lose kids: "unmarried sexual relationships -- including straight ones – can be grounds for losing child custody"
114 points115 points | 20 comments
vote
Anonymous rallies behind Kaitlyn Hunt
24 points25 points | 32 comments
vote
Developers evict historic women’s shelter to build luxury hotel - The 104-yr-old Anna Louise Inn has ended its 2-year legal battle with a Fortune 500 company & will now move. Many view the victory of the insurance company over a community touchstone as a major blow to the city.
29 points30 points | 2 comments
vote
Report: Nearly a quarter of Americans struggle to afford food
13 points14 points | comment
vote
I don’t hate millennials anymore! <--- not my words, but good read on Gen X. IMO
10 points11 points | comment

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: Chekhov's story mirrors Russia's own

Recommendations