EU wins Nobel Peace Prize

EU wins Nobel Peace Prize

While welcomed by European leaders, the award will have little practical effect on the debt crisis afflicting the single currency zone.

October 13, 2012 8:47 by Reuters

The European Union won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for promoting peace, democracy and human rights over six decades, a morale boost for the bloc as it struggles to resolve its economic crisis.

The award served as a reminder that the EU had largely brought peace to a continent that tore itself apart in two world wars in which tens of millions died.

The EU has transformed most of Europe ”from a continent of wars to a continent of peace”, Nobel CommitteeChairman Thorbjoern Jagland said in announcing the award in Oslo.

“The EU is currently undergoing grave economic difficulties and considerable social unrest,” Jagland said. “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.”

Jagland praised the EU for rebuilding Europe from the devastation of World War Two and for its role in spreading stability after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

While welcomed by European leaders, the award will have little practical effect on the debt crisis afflicting the single currency zone, which has brought economic instability and social unrest to several states, with rioting inAthens and Madrid.

On the streets of the Greek capital, where demonstrators have burned Nazi flags to protest against German demands for austerity, the award was greeted with disbelief.

“Is this a joke?” asked Chrisoula Panagiotidi, 36, a beautician who lost her job three days ago. “It’s the last thing I would expect. It mocks us and what we are going through right now. All it will do is infuriate people here.”

The prize, worth $1.2 million, will be presented in Oslo on Dec. 10. It was not immediately clear who from the EU would be there to collect the cheque and what it would be spent on.