Allie Renison: Timing and motivation taint the EU’s Nobel Peace Prize award

Allie Renison works for Mark Reckless MP and the People's Pledge. Follow Allie on Twitter.

In a flurry of hyperbole, EU leaders accepted the institution’s Nobel Peace Prize today for “the advance of peace and reconciliation” amidst a renewed gnashing of teeth over one of the most controversial awardings in the Committee’s history – matched perhaps only by the designation of Barack Obama as recipient less than a year into his first term as US president. One by one, Brussels eurocrats regaled the assembled guests with stories of war and eventual peace in Europe and the strident words from the EU’s founding fathers Monnet and Adenauer which helped set the first round of treaties in motion. Herman van Rompuy made a characteristic Freudian slip in lauding the work of “Europe’s Founders” – a prescient reminder that Europhiles have taken the art of conflating our long-existent geographic reality with a political edifice artificially constructed to new heights. But it is this focus on the past that should illustrate the grievous error in judgement on the part of the Nobel committee, chaired ironically by the man who led Norway’s last failed drive for EU membership, Thorbjørn Jagland.

At some point in time, the EU probably deserved recognition for some of its “achievements”. Not for what it set out to achieve per se, but for some of its more reactive measures and moments. It is genuinely awe-inspiring to see how, little more than a decade on from the ravages of conflict in the Balkans, how much of a transformation the countries of South-Eastern Europe have undergone, and the EU has had more than steady hand in that rebuilding. For these still-developing nation-states, joining a club like the EU is the ultimate stamp to mark their rather speedy transition from embryonic to mature democracies. Though at times, the rush to satisfy all the tickmarks Brussels requires for entry to the club means some of these countries’ developments ring a bit hollow in substance even while gleaming on the surface. The EU as an expediting force in institution-building, sometimes before the country playing host to this non-organically generated architecture may be ready to digest it properly, is not always a force for good.

The worrying precedent that this awarding sets –or perhaps consolidates- is steeped in its timing and motivation. They are not unlinked of course; indeed, the former helps illuminate the latter. Europe today finds itself in a political and economic crisis of a magnitude not seen since the 1940s. The chains of the euro, an experiment EU leaders seem blindly preoccupied with preserving ahead of national stability and security, threaten to turn the continent into a bubbling cauldron of indefinitely bleak economic prospects and socio-political unrest – a dangerous mix indeed. Accordingly, even some of the EU’s most ardent supporters feel that an award for peace as the continent veers dangerously towards anything but is something of a slap in the face to Europe’s citizens, who bear the brunt of decisions made by their political masters in Brussels.

But of course, timing is everything, and in this case it highlights the flawed thinking that clearly went into giving an institution in crisis such momentous recognition. Jagland himself said in an interview shortly after the announcement was made in October, that at a time when “there is a real danger Europe will start disintegrating, we should focus again on the fundamental aims of the organisation”. The award’s purpose was evidently of a hopeful, transformative nature, more about providing the EU with a morale boost during very unpeaceful times indeed. That the Nobel Peace Prize has now taken on a redressing, re-mobilising role in rushing to the defence and aid of its recipient, rather than being a retrospective beacon for recognition, is a stain on its rich and distinguished history. There are some people and organisations at this moment in time who would benefit greatly from having Nobel shine its light on their efforts. The EU, with the vast resources at its disposal, is not short of opportunities to promote itself. Giving it the Nobel Peace Prize now seems an ill-thought through PR exercise, and several former laureates are right to say it demeans both past recipients and the award itself going forward.