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[Nmaro Makari]

Linkage: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19936165

Now, am I the only one who finds the choice of winner puzzling? Not least that the vote was unanimous with seemingly no other contenders. Just off the top of my head I can think of Aung Sang Suu Kyi or Malala Yousufzai, but not even a mention?

[Seriphyn]

The committee might be very afraid of an EU breakup because of this crisis.

IMO, it just can't break up. The European Union is the best shot at a theoritical Earth Federation, and is metrically the best place on the planet to live, before this current crisis.

Surprisingly, the BBC top comments on the original awarding article, were all pro-EU as an ideal (I was expecting bitter cynicism). I think anyone in their right mind should realize that the EU ideal is really amazing. There will always be those accusations of plutocracy and oligarchy, but that exists in EVERY society...so you just look at the good instead. And the EU wins by a long shot.

[Nmaro Makari]

I'm not sure sure any more tbh :/

I mean sure, growing up it was a nice thought, and it was something I might have even believed in now. But reading the Greek reaction to this* today, I just found it hard to somehow excuse this. I mean, who cares what some wannabe pundit on the BBC comment section, or Tory backbencher thinks? By far the most telling reactions come from Greece, people who are feeling pretty sour about the whole thing as is evident.

This whole crisis has caused me to fall rapidly out of love with the EU. Plus, I think the EU's contribution to peace can be disputed, in some cases even quite well. Combined with the fact that there were a multitude of other worthy candidates, I just have to wonder what the committee were thinking.


*http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/greeks-baffled-by-the-eus-peace-prize-8209666.html
*http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/12/greece-eu-nobel-peace-prize-war?newsfeed=true
*http://greece.greekreporter.com/2012/10/13/amid-unrest-greeks-question-eus-nobel-prize/

(Also, how do you attach a link to a word with this thing?)

[Seriphyn]

Hm, will give those a read et al

[Nmaro Makari]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19899540

http://theweek.com/article/slide/234622/the-2012-nobel-peace-prize-who-should-win#1

Some of the people who, in my opinion, were better contenders.

[orange]

(Also, how do you attach a link to a word with this thing?)

Code: [Select]

*[url=http://greece.greekreporter.com/2012/10/13/amid-unrest-greeks-question-eus-nobel-prize/]Amid Unrest Greeks Question EUs Nobel Prize[/url]

[Desiderya]

My own comment:
A big, big "Shrug".

"for [having] over six decades contributed to the advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe."
And this is more or less a truth. Do we all smell of roses and puke rainbows? No, of course we don't. But this doesn't make it any less true that the EU is an institution that promotes (and enforces) exactly this.

At a time like this you'll see all the pro / con arguments, defenders of the union surface as do the vocal critics.

Let's do a simple reality check and find out that a nobel peace price is usually at least 50% wishful thinking.

[Ken]

Weird choice, but whatever.  Remember they gave the thing to President Obama just for his good intentions and for making a speech about nuclear weapons.

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?

[Silas Vitalia]

Integrated economy without integrated politics for enforcing economic policy will continue to be a disaster.

And this prize was as well deserved as Obama's.

You wanna give it to some one with some stones, give it to Aung San Suu Kyi.

[Silas Vitalia]

Correction: Apparently she did get it in 1991.

[orange]

The European Union is the best shot at a theoritical Earth Federation

Should that even be a goal?

[Vikarion]

IMO, it just can't break up. The European Union is the best shot at a theoritical Earth Federation, and is metrically the best place on the planet to live, before this current crisis.

You have to be careful with those metrics. Some of them (like infant mortality) are reported differently by European countries in order to give a different impression to the world than might otherwise be perceived.

[Desiderya]

You have to be careful with those metrics. Some of them (like infant mortality) are reported differently by European countries in order to give a different impression to the world than might otherwise be perceived.

Oh, can you enlighten us? Quickest source I've found was of course on wikipedia  ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_infant_mortality_rate ), where the list is published and estimated by an extremely anti-US source. 

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?

It looks like the monetary union was introduced too quickly, that's why the EU has such a hard time regulating the surroundings in their member states right now. Basically what's done now should've happened years earlier.
Overall I must say that I do enjoy (living in) the EU, since open borders and shared currency makes live and travel /so/ much easier. You are used to this, I assume, so you know the benefits. Might just want to add that it's easy to cross several borders here in one day of driving.


General re: Weird choice: It is, but it (imo) also isn't undeserved. Also I'd like to point out that Norway ( and as such the Nobel Price Commitee ) isn't part of the EU, so it's very likely not an act of patting one's own shoulder.

[Lyn Farel]

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.

[Nmaro Makari]

In response to Seri's point about it being a better place to live, I do feel I should point out that mainland Europe in particular becomes a whole lot less hot if you're from a minority background, especially Roma Gypsy or North African Muslim or Turkish. I highly doubt a majority of these people responded favourably to this news.