Nobel Peace Price – fat finger?

When we heard of the Nobel Peace Prize earlier today, we had to check the calendar to make sure this wasn’t April 1st. Spiegel’s take below, without additional comments.

European leaders greeted the decision to award the Nobel Peace Prize to the European Union on Friday, saying it would provide urgently needed motivation in the debt crisis. But euroskeptics could hardly believe their ears and are already ridiculing the jury in Oslo.

The decision to award the Nobel Peace Prize to the European Union has divided the Continent. While European leaders in Brussels and national capitals are basking in the glow provided by the unexpected honor, euroskeptics in the EU have unleashed their contempt for the Norwegian Nobel Committee.

In Britain, Friday’s award has been the subject of particularly heated commentary. Iain Martin, a columnist with the conservative Daily Telegraph dismissed the prize as “beyond parody.” He writes that the prize has been awarded prematurely because “we have no idea how the experiment to create an anti-democratic federation will end.” Besides, he writes, “daftest of all is the notion that the EU itself has kept the peace.” Instead, he writes, it was the Brits and the Americans who brought peace to the Continent.

Members of the House of Commons with the conservative Tories described the decision as “laughable” and an “April Fool’s Joke.” Meanwhile, the tabloid Daily Mailruns with photos of protesters in Athens burning a flag emblazoned with a swastika during this week’s visit by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and quotes the head of the Tory party in the European Parliament, Martin Callanan, as stating, “Presumably this prize is for the peace and harmony on the streets of Athens and Madrid.”

Even the EU-friendly Economist columnist Charlemagne writes, “Hmmm,” questioning the timing of the award, given that the EU is currently threatened with a break-up.

Full reading here.