The EU was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, in recognition of its role in bringing France and Germany closer together, and by helping strengthen democracy in southern as well as central and eastern Europe.
“This is in a way a message to Europe that we should do everything we can to secure what has been achieved and move forward,” Thorbjoern Jagland, head of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, told reporters in Oslo after awarding the $1.2m prize.
“We have to keep in mind what has been achieved on this continent and not let the continent go into disintegration again. We know what it means: the emergence of extremism and nationalism once again.”
The decision comes as the EU is embroiled in the eurozone crisis and amid a deep debate over the future of Europe.
It follows a number of contentious recent Nobel Peace Prizes, from US President Barack Obama in 2009 to Chinese democracy activist Liu Xiaobo the following year. Norwegian business is still feeling the effects of the latter award with visas to China almost impossible to obtain.
The EU award is also likely to provoke sharp debate in Norway where anti-EU feelings run high given that Oslo has never joined the 27-country union.
But the Norwegian committee, which only hands out the peace prize, with all other Nobel awards coming from Sweden, has discussed the possibility of the EU winning for several years.
Geir Lundestad, the secretary of the committee, said two years ago that the EU was only behind Mahatma Gandhi in terms of being overlooked for the prize.
Last year’s peace prize was awarded to three women from Africa and the Middle East but any sense of harmony between the winners was shattered this week when Leymah Gbowee, the Liberian activist, chided fellow winner Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Liberia’s president, for not doing enough to tackle corruption.
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