2012 Nobel Peace prize goes to EU

The Norwegian Nobel committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2012 is to be awarded to the European Union.

The announcement produced an audible murmur in the Nobel institute in Oslo, and surprise that non EU-member Norway decided to honour the EU, which had not been nominated and had not even figured on any list of possible or even rumored Peace Prize winners.

“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 stabilising part played by the European Union has helped to transform most of Europe from a continent of war to a continent of peace,” said the chairman of Norway’s Nobel committee Thorbjorn Jagland.

Personalities passed over this time include Willie Nelson, Bill Gates, Imran Khan, Julian Assange, Tim Berners Lee, Helmut Kohl, Bill Clinton, Mordechai Vanunu, Bradley Manning or Yulia Tymoshenko.

Instead the EU’s infrastructure, its commission, parliament and legions of tireless political architects and bureauocratic tinkerers have been recognised, as have all of us, European citizens, who have gone along with the at-times seemingly impossible scheme.

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