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EU wins Nobel Peace Prize



The Large One

Who's Next?
Jul 7, 2003
52,343
97.2FM
For uniting the continent.

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
 




beorhthelm

A. Virgo, Football Genius
Jul 21, 2003
36,229
wtf? have they run of genuinely deserving people?
 


Winker

Score Immediately!
Jul 14, 2008
2,604
Away with the fairies
"The successful struggle for democracy" - would that be when the EU replaced the elected governments of Italy and Greece with beaurocrats to force through their policies?
 


goldstone

Well-known member
NSC Patron
Jul 5, 2003
7,232
What a joke! The only award the EU should be given is for wasting billions of Euros of European taxpayers money. For example:

"The European Parliament's monthly "travelling circus" – when MEPs and staff travel hundreds of miles to Strasbourg – costs the taxpayer £150 million a year"
 






strings

Moving further North...
Feb 19, 2006
9,969
Barnsley
I can't ruddy wait for my Nobel medal. Although, it will probably take a while for them to make all 103 million of us a medal. As long as I get it before next years Nobel prize announcements, I'll be happy.
 








Giraffe

VERY part time moderator
Helpful Moderator
NSC Patron
Aug 8, 2005
27,521
So who picks it up then? I can see that being a right old binfest. Bet they have a nice meeting in Rome to discuss that.
 




cunning fergus

Well-known member
NSC Patron
Jan 18, 2009
5,006
Glad to see the co-operation and warmth that fellow citizens in the EU have for each other has finally been recognised.

In fact only this week I noticed that when Der Chancellor Merkel was in Athens many Greeks went to the trouble of taking the day off work so they could get togged up in the older style German national dress and go to salute her.

Yesterday french fishermen were so pleased to see their British counterparts going about their business that they steamed over to say bonjour, then almost crashed into their boats.

How absolutely wonderful.
 






beorhthelm

A. Virgo, Football Genius
Jul 21, 2003
36,229
Recognition for Germany taking over europe without the need for guns.

oh yes. since you put it like that, it is indeed worthy winner, shirley?
 


RexCathedra

Aurea Mediocritas
Jan 14, 2005
3,509
Vacationland
The EU manufactures and exports a 1/3 of the worlds armaments. Some mistake here surely.
They are not using them on each other. Which had been heretofore a pretty reliable bet.
I suggest Verdun for the actual ceremony, instead of Oslo....
 
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The Large One

Who's Next?
Jul 7, 2003
52,343
97.2FM
I'm going to buck the trend here and say I kind of see what The Nobel Committee is on about.

Europe has had a violent and bloody past, with warring factions, changing loyalties and feuding empires and commonwealth for over 1500 years. The relative peace we have now is possibly taken for granted by our generation.

The predecessor to the EU was formed only 12 years after the end of the most horrendous conflict in human history to that point (and possibly since), with over 55 million people killed in Europe over six years.

I might suggest - and feel free to destroy the argument - that any resentment towards this award might be more against the plodding, cumbersome, black-holed bureaucracy the EU has now become today, rather than the goals the original Common Market, then the EEC, in the form of continent-wide unity, set out to achieve. Its aims were, after all, ones of peace and prosperity.

Whatever you judge the EU by, it must be borne in mind western Europe has not had a war for 67 years. That, in the great scheme of things, is quite a turnaround.
 


father_and_son

Well-known member
Jan 23, 2012
4,654
Under the Police Box
The EU/European Parliament/ECHR/etc have successfully introduced peace in Europe only because we cannot afford to go to war with each other anymore. And I don't mean "afford" in a moral sense, merely financial!

[MENTION=257]The Large One[/MENTION] ... A spectacular achievement to stop the localised infighting and the global escalations of the in fighting which have occurred in the past, I agree, but then no-one in Europe has significant Oil reserves any more... were Poland to discover really large quantities of oil within its borders, I'm sure the Germans would be in there like a shot - only this time the Americans would be leading the charge rather than turning up late!
 




Westdene Seagull

aka Cap'n Carl Firecrotch
NSC Patron
Oct 27, 2003
21,713
The arse end of Hangleton
Whatever you judge the EU by, it must be borne in mind western Europe has not had a war for 67 years. That, in the great scheme of things, is quite a turnaround.

Although it could be argued that it's because we've being fighting wars elsewhere. I'd also suggest that NATO has had something to do with that lasting peace.
 


The Large One

Who's Next?
Jul 7, 2003
52,343
97.2FM
Although it could be argued that it's because we've being fighting wars elsewhere. I'd also suggest that NATO has had something to do with that lasting peace.

You're not wrong, but we've been fighting wars elsewhere for a long time before 1939 too, sometimes against locals, but other times against Europeans.

No-one is in any doubt that there was an appetite for peace in Europe after 1945 - the continent had for the most part been blown to smithereens. But it took a sea-change in attitudes towards one another to bring about this 1500-year inter-state fighting.
 


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