David Blackburn

The Nobel Prize’s EU joke prompts questions about the nation state

The award of the Nobel Prize to the European Union is a tremendous joke; and like all great jokes it has brought people together. Commentators of left and right are united, for the most part, in condemning the Nobel Committee’s revision of history that claims the EU, a body that has only existed since 1993, deserves credit for securing ‘60 years of peace’ in Europe. Iain Martin and the legal commentator David Allen Green give the fullest accounts, rightly commending America’s enormous contribution to Europe since 1945.

The timing of the award adds to the general mirth because there can be little doubt that events in the Eurozone are threatening the European project; or indeed that the European project is the author of its own misfortune. The award of the prize has not hidden this existential strain; if anything, it has exposed it further.

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