[Skybird]

You might be surprised, tyrant, but formally this decision is more acceptable than many others of recent years. The Peace Nobel prize was founded to reward merits already gained in the field of military arms reduction and achieving (in a military understanding) a state of peace in the world. Many decisions of the past have ignored this fundamental premise, and hijacked the award for other purposes, for political correctness, for gender sociology, and for hopes what the awarded person would do in the future (Obama on my mind), and I do not know what else. Seen that way, the award for the EU is more in line with the original intention, than on many other opportunities in the past.

However, this does not mean I am happy. The other major actor that secured peace in Europe, and imo did more to secure the freedom of a free Europe, is NATO, whose role during the cold war can hardly be overestimated. For its cold war role as well as the time of stabilizing European relations after WWII, NATO imo was more important than the EEC.

The EEC is no more, but got mutated into the EU, which is something very different by what it plans for the future. And while the EU's role bases on the heritage of the EEC, its record is anything but flawless. It failed miserably during the Balkan wars. It supported the powertaking of militant radicalism in certain Muslim countries during the Arab Spring. The Euro already is no guarantee for peace and friendship, but has become the originator of bitter and deep-reaching rifts between European nations. And as I just have read in German comment in a newspaper, it is to be feared that the already very reality-disconnected, distant actors in the spaceship Brussels will mistake this award as a confirmation of their doings and ideological intentions, which probably is wanted by the Nobel committee which thereby once again demasks itself not as a gremium rewarding past merits, but as an actively engaging actor that wants to influence the future on behalf of what can only be called the Gutmenschentum. Such an active, policy-forming role is not what Nobel wanted, and the criticism has often been raised now against the Nobel committee, I am by far not the first.

So, I can live with this decision slightly better than with a peace Nobel prize for Obama, Theresa or Arafat or the UN itself. Which is a statement only about the relative value of one decision compared to others. From an absolute perspective, I think the prize should have been limited to the EEC and EU pre-89, and excluding the post-EU . So I see little reason to make much angry noise about this decision today - but I also will not applaud it. There have been worst decisions in the past.