'Someone decided to curtsey to Brussels'

George Orwell would have no problem recognising the era in which we live. “War is peace”. Giving the Nobel prize for peace is as strange as giving the Nobel Peace prize to the great warmonger – Barack Obama.

This response comes very close to my own.

EU’s Nobel Peace prize 'unexpected and strange' – senior Russian MP

Giving the Nobel Peace Prize to an economic and political block with just a secondary role in peacekeeping is a strange step, says the MP in charge of CIS relations.

RT,

12 October, 2012

“Apparently, someone decided to curtsey to Brussels,” said State Duma deputy and PACE vice president Leonid Slutskiy.

“To put it mildly, this was unexpected and non-standard,” the Russian Politician added. Peacekeeping is at best a secondary aspect in the EU’s activities, he said.

Slutskiy went on to explain that the European Union is first of all an economic institution with objectives of political integration, but peacekeeping hardly ranks high on the union’s agenda. “I would not speak of any major peacekeeping operations under EU coordination,” he noted.

Therefore, the gesture bears a complimentary if not to say political character, the Russian parliamentary told reporters.

Some Russian Human Rights activists also said that the decision to give the Peace Price to the EU was wrong.

“I wonder how they intend to take the EU’s picture as the Nobel Prize winner and how the prize will be handed to the EU," said Lyudmila Alekseyeva of the Moscow Helsinki group. The 85-year old veteran of the Human Rights movement added that in her view it was more understandable to give the award to the political prisoners in Iran or maybe to some Russian public figure.

Alekseyeva herself was reportedly nominated for the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize together with the Belarus rights activist Ales Bialiatski, but she made clear she had not been offended by the prize announcement.

Another possible 2012 Nobel Peace Prize nominee from Russia, the head of the Civil Assistance Committee Svetlana Gannushkina, said straightforwardly that she was disappointed by the committee’s decision. "The award has been depersonalized to such an extent. It has been given to a state, bureaucratic structure,” Gannushkina said. "This is just laughable," she added.

On Friday the Nobel Committee awarded the $1.2 million Nobel Peace Prize to the European Union. The 27-nation organization was awarded the prizing for its historic role in uniting the continent" and its contributions to the advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe.

I needn't have turned to Russian media for scepticism about this award. No doubt the prize will be awarded to Nigel Farage's old friends, the unelected and unaccountable Barroso and von Rompuy.

I can hardly wait to hear what Nigel Farage has to say about this!

European Union wins Nobel Peace Prize despite year of anti-austerity protests

Despite a year marred by violent protests against austerity and the looming prospect of an acrimonious break up, the European Union was controversially awarded the Nobel peace prize for fostering stability and unity.

The Telegraph,

12 October, 2012

The shock decision by the Norwegian prize jury was greeted with disbelief and derision, but also with some relief by supporters of the European project.

Reminding the world of the EU's role in preventing conflict on the continent over the last 60 years, the committee's citation praised the union's "advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights".

"The work of the EU represents the 'fraternity of nations'," it said, referring to its expansion to 27 members.

However, the citation acknowledged how problems with the euro have ravaged southern European economies and plunged Europe into its worst recession for 80 years.

The decision was widely interpreted as a conscious bid to prop up the single currency – and the bloc itself – in their darkest hour, after the Nobel committee chairman Thorbjorn Jagland warned of a possible return to "extremism and nationalism".

"We should do everything we can to safeguard it [the EU], not let it disintegrate. If the euro starts falling apart, then I believe that the internal market will also start falling apart. And then obviously we get new nationalism in Europe," he said after announcing the prize in Oslo.

Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, quickly linked the "wonderful selection" to her country's efforts to save the 17-nation eurozone.

"I often say that the euro is more than a currency, and we should not forget that these weeks and months we have spent working to strengthen the euro. At the end of the day it is about the original idea of a union of peace and of values," she told reporters.

The award was welcomed by many European leaders offering respite.

Herman Van Rompuy, president of the European Council, and José Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, said it was a "tremendous honour".

"It is a prize not just for the project and the institutions embodying a common interest, but for the 500 million citizens living in our Union," they said in a statement.

Italian anti-riot policemen clash with protesters as they demonstrate against the government's economic policy measures in Rome, Italy on September 14, 2011

Mr van Rompuy and Mr Barroso could collect the prize, which is normally given to individuals with long records of struggle against oppression. The Dalai Lama and Nelson Mandela have been among the recipients.

The award of the prestigious prize sparked a mixed response in Greece, where living standards have crashed as the economy has contracted 20 per cent in the last three years, despite bailouts totalling 240 billion euros (£200 billion).

With social tensions still high, more than 7,000 police had to be deployed to protect Mrs Merkel on a visit to Athens this week, when she was derided by some as a reincarnation of the Third Reich.

Rena Dourou, an MP for the Left-wing Syriza opposition, said of the award: "At first, many people thought this was some kind of joke. It is a very big surprise."

Christos Dimas, an MP for the country's ruling centre-Right coalition, pleaded for better treatment from Greece's European paymasters.

"The EU may have established peace in Europe in the last 50 years, but today its main challenge is to maintain solidarity among its members," he said.

While Athens has often burned, in Catalonia, Italy and Belgium, resentment at diktats laid down by Brussels to enforce fiscal discipline have also driven a backlash in the shape of mounting nationalist feeling.

Even so, the award was perhaps not the committee's most contentious. Barack Obama received the prize just days into his presidency of the United States, while commanding the world's largest military in two wars. He later sanctioned a dramatic increase in secret drone attacks on militants in Pakistan and elsewhere.

Euro-sceptics nonetheless reacted with scorn. Martin Callanan, leader of the Euro-sceptic Conservatives and Reformists party in the European parliament, said: "Twenty years ago this prize would have been sycophantic but maybe more justified. Today it is downright out of touch."

The Foreign Office released a brief, lukewarm statement urging the European Union to "preserve and strengthen" its achievements in future.

Nicolai Wammen, Denmark's Europe minister, struck a balanced tone: "We can of course laugh at this, and there are many problems in the EU. It is certainly not a perfect union but it is a strong message that a lot has gone right also since the creation of the EU," he said.

Nigel Farage, the head of the UK Independence Party, added: "This goes to show that the Norwegians really do have a sense of humour."

Here are the comments of Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky on the nature of the European Union.