It is odd that some people find this award inappropriate. It is both inspired, and deserved, not because of efforts by the EU to promote peace in trouble spots, but because it is the major contributory combination which has brought the longest period of peace among the nations of Europe since the time of the Roman Empire. That is an achievement unsurpassed in history and comes not from the domination by the strong of the weak, but by all the nation states working in partnership together.
None of its institutions is perfect, the threads of its collective democracy are quite frayed, its currency is in trouble and at present it borders on economic recession. Some of its members are technically bust and its competitiveness is undermined by extraordinary and sometimes idiotic regulations. Yes there is a lot wrong. But all of it pales to insignificance when the achievement of peace among its formerly warring peoples is set in contrast. Only those who lived through those terrible wars understand this, because all of the living remember the millions of dead, not as an act of remembrance on a special day, but because they still miss family and friends bombed, shot, gassed or butchered in hideous depravity.
That is what the Nobel Prize is for. This recognition should encourage Europe on its onward journey. One day Russia must be allowed into the fold. She has given more lives in the defence of Europe’s integrity than all the members of the EU put together.