I found that decision weird too. Added to the fact it was attributed to an institution rather than to a single individual as well. But why not... Pretty sure better candidates could have been found but as said above it was the same with Obama. Funny thing is apparently this EU nobel prize has been vividly criticized by Lech Welesa (1983 peace nobel prize).
I think it is not too hard to see the link with the current EU crisis. I think it is not a reward in itself but most of an expectation for the times to come, or some kind of encouragement.
Anyway, people like to say that they are pissed with the EU just because everything goes wrong. We have to remember the "no" to the constitution referendum several years ago which is quite telling in itself : what really causes issues currently is not the EU in itself, and besides radical and conservative parties, most of the people actually opposed to the EU are not opposed to it as an ideal, but in it current state. It has several times already been criticized for being overtly being way too much liberal (see how it deals with chinese economical influences) and overall too soft. It has been criticized for staying light years away from the global population where we hardly hear about what's going on on the top EU layers, especially considering how many of our laws are not even handled anymore by our national governements but by the EU itself (and it is still increasing). Well, it has been criticized on a lot of points and it has mostly been directed at its leadership, rather at the entity in itself imo.
I personnally find the ideal wonderful.
Re: the EU; My knowledge is limited and experience virtually nil being an American. My understanding is that the current crisis kinda stems directly from the Maastricht Treaty in '92 when the French lassoed the freshly unified Germany into the shared currency without also creating sufficiently potent shared organizations to regulate and control the economy on a continental scale. Not talking about the ECB, but a true fiscal and banking union and meaningful coordination of economic policies. They'll probably end up creating and/or investing those organizations as a result of the present fiscal crises. Monetary union will lead to economic union--through hardship--and that could, eventually, pave the way for a more genuine political union. c/d?
Why Maastricht would be a cause of that ?
To me the primaries causes of the current crisis are the same than for the US crisis : the subprimes crisis (which looks a lot like the Great Depression stock market mechanics), added to things like Goldman Sachs screwing things up further with shady deals done with the Greek governement to erase a part of their debt, which helped to lead the whole country in the mess it currently is (added to the fact that their governement has always hidden their true economical situation to the EU). Of course these are not the only reasons, but they are overall very similar or often tied to what happens in the US. Add to that big, bloated banks screwing things ever more by losing huge capital in trading activities... Like Bankia in Spain, already sucking in billions from the EU Central Bank to do a little damage control. Banks having the right to combine deposit activities with trading activities, becoming enormous (and that's now happening in the US too since they also reverted that Roosevelt act to keep deposit and trading separate). Eventually, citizens pay for that.