The Nobel peace prize to EU - what do you think?
Number24
NorwayPosts: 22,174MI6 Agent
My take is: It's not the Nobel prize for Economics, it's the peace prize! While the economy of the EU is in tatters, the EU has been a success when it comes to promoting peace and stability in Europe. When the Union started up, France and Germany were mortal enemies - now Serbia and Croatia are making an effort to be better democracies so they can be EU members together. But I do think the timing could have been better, since the EU has never been this unpopular. So it's the right winner at the wrong time.
What is your take on it?
What is your take on it?
Comments
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Yes, I think your'e right. But I think the whole thing went to hell in a hand cart already in 1994....
-Mr Arlington Beech
Let's be clear: I'm not in favour of Norway becoming an EU member. I think it's too bureaucratic, the decision-making process isn't democratic enough. They also let countries that were not ready into the Euro zone, simply because they wanted the Euro zone to be big. You can't give someone a stabile currency and at the same time let them do what they want economically. When the Mediteranian countries got into the Euro zone, they were able to loan a lot more money. And so they did......
But while the EU is pretty much a faliure when it comes to economy, it is a success when it comes to peace. The key people who created the EU after WWII came from the border regions between Germany and France and had seen two world wars. It wasn't by chance that the EU started up as a coal and steel union. In addition to being economically important products, coal and steel was essential to wage war. If you share those products, you cant't go to war with each other. War in central Europe is now unthinkable. In the seventies the right-wing dictatorships in southern Europe (Greece, Spain, Portugal) fell, and the EU was important in the work to turn those countries into democracies. The same thing happened in Eastern Europe in the 90's. Now the countries in the Balkans are strengthening their laws and democratic institutions to quallify for EU memberships. In the 90's those countries were at war with each other, now they want to trade with each other.
Actually, the New START treaty was signed in April 2010 (and only agreed on in March 2010) whereas he was awarded the Peace Prize in October 2009. So it couldn't have been given for that, and if it had been surely it would have been shared between Obama and Medvedev. Obama took office in January 2009 and the Nobel Committee would have had to have made their decision well before its announcement in October...and while Obama made a good start in office with favourable speeches to Europe, Russia and the Arab World he hadn't actually done much more than many previous US leaders had done in their first few months in power - and certainly hadn't done anything concrete beyond those words. I should hasten to add that I am not anti-Obama by any stretch of the imagination, but I maintain that his receipt of the Peace Prize was a knee-jerk reaction to his election and nothing more.
Toutbrun: Giving the prize to teh Euro would truely have been crazy! While the Nobel peace prize has been awarded to organisations several times in the past, it has never before been given to a currency. You are joking, right?
Are you kidding me??? I live in Holland, and the Euro is disliked by approx. half the people here. Prices were upped widely across the country when converting to the Euro, people feel they were taken advantage of. Besides that, despite a massive recession in our own country, we bring truckloads of money to Greece because of the big Euro dream.
Saying the Euro brought enormous peace because Foreign Affairs says so - how American can you be?
Oh, I don't know. Things looked very peaceful and full of love in Athens last week when Angela Merkel visited! There was wonderful Greco-German Harmony in the streets!
Not that I've been dishonest in earlier posts, but .....
Do you remember Torbjørn Jagland, the Leader of the Nobel pease prize commitee who announced the winner in terribly accented English? Most Norwegians speak English better than that ....
He is also a BIG fan of the EU and the leader of The Council of Europe. He hasn't been able to award the Nobel prize to the EU before, since one of the other board members is from the Socialist Left Party and very much against the EU. But this year she's been ill ....
So that's the reason the prize was awarded to EU this year, and not a year with less controvercy surronding the Union.
I don't think anyone ever said that it was «because he wasn't George Bush...»
I definitely don't think that Obama, being the head of the US Army, should receive the Nobel for peace... If only for Israel and Iran.
Torbjørn Jagland (and the rest of the board, including the ex-leader of the anti-EU agrarian Centre party) really belive this was a deserved prize, in my opinion. It was just the timing and the reason for the timing that was questionable.