EU awarded Nobel Peace Prize

The European Union has won the Nobel Peace Prize for 2012.
The EU, according to the organisers of the award, won it because of its six decades of work in advancing peace in Europe.
The organisers said the EU helped to transform Europe from a continent of war to a continent of peace.
The last organisation to be given the award outright was Medecins Sans Frontieres, which won it in 1999.
President of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee, Thorbjoern Jagland, said despite the current financial problems and social unrest in Europe, the EU still merited the award.
Jagland said the major focus of the award committee was the advancement of “peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights.”
He said the EU had done a lot of work in sealing the reconciliation between France and Germany in the decades after World War II.
He also praised the EU for incorporating Spain, Portugal and Greece after their authoritarian regimes collapsed in the 1970s.
He said the EU’s reconciliation work had now moved to Balkan countries and pointed out that Croatia was on the verge of membership.