European Union Nobel Laureate

The winner of the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize is the European Union.

There has been some mocking of the award from a mixture of sources. But maybe it is time to look at history and I'll take you back to Robert Schuman. You may not know who Robert Schuman was but in 1950 he was the French Foreign Minister. On 9 May of that year he issued the Schuman declaration in light of the two world wars that had centred on Europe in the previous 35 years.

The French had realised that justice across Europe and perceived injustice had led to the two wars and therefore for a lasting peace it could not be restrained to the State apparatus alone so the French Government issued the Schuman Declaration.

• It marked the birth of Europe
• It made war between Member States impossible
• It encouraged world peace
• It would transform Europe by a 'step by step' process (building through sectoral supranational communities) leading to the unification of Europe democratically, including both East and West Europe separated by the Iron Curtain
• It created the world's first supranational institution and
• the world's first international anti-cartel agency
• It created a single market across the Community
• This, starting with the coal and steel sector, would revitalise the whole European economy by similar community processes
• It would improve the world economy and the developing countries, such as those in Africa.

There has not been a war between the member states since 1945, the membership has now increased to include some of those cold war enemies. It has acted together as a European peace keeping force at times of genocide elsewhere, it has helped  developing countries financially as a means to peaceful growth.

Apart from the Balkan war in the 90s and other civil unrest in some countries in the lifetime of the European Coal and Steel Community, the European Economic Community and now the European Union Europe the continent that sparked the two bloodiest wars in world history has been at peace. Surely this is due to the binds that were established between them as a result of Schuman's declaration and the bodies that have followed on from that.

Surely for the length of maintaining Peace the EU is a more worthy winner of the Nobel Peace Prize than a US President in his first year of office.