The award of the
Nobel Peace Prize to the EU last week sparked a lot of debate.
What qualifies
the EU for this accolade? One argument is that it was established after World
War II to ensure harmony by pooling resources between France and Germany. The EU began as the
European Coal and Steel Community in 1951, largely at the behest of America, to
enable massive rearmament at the start of the Cold War. The original objective
was to prepare for war, not peace. Meanwhile NATO, established in 1949, was
forged as a unified defence league for peacekeeping not only in Europe but internationally.
The
European Coal and Steel Community developed into the European Economic
Community and began foisting ideologies of federalism upon currently 500 million
citizens who are subject to, but without democratic influence over, its laws.
At
present, after putting political will over common sense by creating a single
currency, we are left with a crisis that the unelected European Commission is unashamedly
using to push forward deeper integration. The relative peace we have enjoyed in
Europe for the last ten years is beginning to
unravel.
We
are seeing the humanitarian fall out of the EU's failed fiscal policy, with
thousands plunged into poverty: utterly despicable in 21st century Europe. Just last week the Spanish Red Cross announced that
their winter appeal is to create food parcels for Spaniards, the first time the
campaign has been focused domestically and not on developing countries in
Africa and Asia.
In Greece
25,000 people are dependent upon handouts from the Orthodox Church. Is it
surprising 50,000 protestors turned out on the streets of Athens, some burning Swastikas, to express
their anger at the visit of Angela Merkel, who they feel is responsible for the
crippling austerity causing so much suffering? A steep increase in tensions is
allowing the rise of extremism and inter-country distrust.
Under
the current structure of the EU, with inter-reliant energy and agricultural
policy, a burgeoning External Action Service and the call for Qualified
Majority Voting on Foreign Affairs, what would happen if the international balance
of peace tips? Do we want to be part of a giant multi-nation block with no say
as a country? Many opposed the merger of EAD and BAE (including the Pentagon in
America)
on the grounds of undermining international security by creating an arms giant.
Yet merging other forms of self sufficiency, from farming to trade, can be equally
as dangerous. I do not oppose free trade with Europe,
nor do I undervalue the importance of transcontinental cooperation in international
security, but I fear the consequences of creating an unanswerable multi-national
superpower. History has observed the knife edge upon which the world teetered during
the Cold War. The constitution of the USSR and the EU post-Lisbon Treaty
is staggeringly 98% similar.
I am rather
cynical about the timing of this award. Tensions are running high and the EU desperately
needs an image boost to quell growing discontent. Perhaps by posthumously
awarding the EU the Peace Prize now, the Nobel Committee is trying to promote a
sense of solidarity where nationalistic tendencies are simmering just below the
surface of increasingly violent riots.
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