European Union wins 2012 Nobel for Peace

The European Union has won the Nobel Peace Prize for its long-term role in uniting the continent, the Norwegian Nobel Committee said on Friday, an award seen as morale boost for the bloc as it struggles to resolve its debt crisis.

 

"The union and its forerunners have for over six decades contributed to the advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe," Nobel Committee president Thorbjoern Jagland said in Oslo.

 

Norwegian public broadcaster NRK said an hour before the announcement that the EU would win. The prize, worth $1.2 million, will be presented in Oslo on December 10.

 

The committee praised the 27-nation EU for rebuilding after World War Two and for its role in spreading stability to former communist countries after the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall. "Over a 70-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," Jagland said, explaining this year's prize decision.

 

The decision by the five-member panel, led by Council of Europe Secretary-General Thorbjoern Jagland, was unanimous, NRK said. The Nobel committee and the EU delegation to Norway was not immediately available for comment. Founded with the Treaty of Rome in 1957 with a community of six nations seeking greater economic integration, the bloc has expanded to 27 including east European states added since the Cold War. But the EU is mired in crisis with strains on the euro, the common currency shared by 17 nations.

 

The award is however a surprise at a time when European solidarity is facing its most daunting challenge in decades amid deep rifts between a south drowning in debt and a wealthier north, led by Germany, only reluctantly coming to the rescue. Whether or not that begrudging assistance will keep the European project afloat remains to be seen, but the deep crisis has broadened the gulf already felt between citizens in the different member states and a Brussels long seen as too distant and bureaucratic.

 

But the creation of the organisation is credited with helping to bring peace and stability to the war-torn continent by bringing together arch-enemies France and Germany and herding them down the same path. Despite recurring difficulties, the EU has become the biggest common market in the world, allowing free circulation of goods, people, services and capital.

 

Many Norwegians are bitterly opposed to the EU, seeing it as a threat to the sovereignty of nation states. Norway, the home of the peace prize, has voted "no" twice to joining the EU, in 1972 and 1994. The country has prospered outside the EU, partly thanks to huge oil and gas resources. The five-member committee is appointed by parliament, where parties are deeply split over EU membership. Jagland has long-favoured EU membership.