In what may be the most bizarre decision in the history of the award, the Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to the European Union. All 27 nations and 500 million citizens. The Nobel committee cited the EU's contributions to "peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights" that have essentially kept the continent from tearing itself apart, the way it has so many times up to and including World War II. 
 
 In the long run, the decision certainly makes sense, as Europe is currently enjoying one of its longest eras of peace and stability since the Union was first born in 1952. After the two nations fought three wars in the span of 70 years, now "war between Germany and France is unthinkable." However, as many people are pointing out, awarding the prize to the EU in 2012 seems odd, when the Union itself is being threatened by economic turmoil and the currency union shared by most of its members appears to be a massive mistake. Given the current money problems, the prize of $1.2 million almost seems like mockery, though some are interpreting the decision as a giant pep talk for a continent that sorely needs a reminder of what it can accomplish. 
 
 Giving the Prize to an organization is also unusual, but not unprecedented . Something called the International Peace Bureau won all the way back in 1910 and other past recipients include the International Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders, and UNICEF. However, the 2012 award is likely to go down as one of the more head-scratching choices, like the awards for Yasser Arafat, Henry Kissinger, the International Atomic Energy Agency (after the the U.S. had already gone to war in Iraq), and Barack Obama, who won after less than a year in office as President. 
 
 In one final surprise, the decision was actually leaked and reported early by Norway's NRK public radio. Norway, where the Nobel Prize was born, is not even in the EU and has twice rejected appeals to join. 
 
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 Dashiell Bennett ||||| The 2012 Nobel peace prize has been awarded to the European Union, with the Norwegian committee ignoring the current economic crisis and instead praising the EU's decades-long historical role in promoting reconciliation and peace. 
 
 Speaking in Oslo, Thorbjørn Jagland, head of the Nobel committee, shrugged off the euro's woes and said the EU had been a force for peace both after the second world war, binding Germany and France together, and following the bloody slaughter of the 1990s in the Balkans. 
 
 He said: "The main message is that we need to keep in mind what we have achieved on this continent, and not let the continent go into disintegration again." The collapse of the EU could lead to a resurgence of the "extremism and nationalism" that had led to so many "awful wars", he warned bluntly. 
 
 Jagland cited several key EU achievements. He said another conflict between France and Germany was "unthinkable" following 70 years as close allies. He mentioned the EU's successful expansion, with the accession of Greece, Portugal and Spain to the EU in the 1980s spreading democracy, and the admission of eastern European nations after the fall of the Berlin Wall. 
 
 He also praised the EU's role in the Balkans. "Ethnically based national conflicts have been settled," he declared. Croatia will join the EU next year, Montenegro was opening up membership negotiations and Serbia has candidate status, he said. The EU had also "advanced democracy and human rights" in Turkey, he suggested, overlooking the fact that Turkey's membership application has dragged on inconclusively for decades. 
 
 Jagland conceded that the 27-member bloc was not in great shape, saying: "The EU is currently undergoing grave economic difficulties and considerable social unrest." But he stressed: "The Norwegian Nobel committee wishes to focus on what it sees as the EU's most important result: the successful struggle for peace and reconciliation and for democracy and human rights. The stabilising part played by the EU has helped to transform most of Europe from a continent of war to a continent of peace." 
 
 Reaction to the news was sharply divided. Within minutes of the award being announced in Oslo at 10am GMT on Friday, the president of the European commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, tweeted: "It is a great honour for the whole of the #EU, all 500 million citizens, to be awarded the 2012 #Nobel Peace prize." He later called it a "justified recognition" of a unique project that works for the benefit of its citizens and the world. 
 
 But the award provoked derision from British Eurosceptics and some rightwing Tory MPs. Nigel Farage, the leader of Ukip, allegedly remarked: "This goes to show the Norwegians really do have a sense of humour." Another Ukip MEP, Marta Andreasen, said: "If this is their definition of peace then the Norwegians need a new dictionary." 
 
 Taking questions from reporters, Jagland defended the committee's seemingly counterintuitive decision and spoke repeatedly of the wars in former Yugoslavia: "We have to keep in mind that not so many years ago people from this part of Europe killed each other in awful wars … We are only focusing on what we have achieved on this continent and what could happen if disintegration starts again." 
 
 Jagland said the committee, made up of members from non-EU Norway, wasn't trying "to save the euro" or attempting to dig Europe out of its current hole. Asked what citizens from Greece, Spain and Ireland would make of their unanimous decision, he said a majority of citizens from these countries still supported the EU: "I think this historic empathy still remains in the heads of so many Europeans. They don't want to lose what has been achieved. Many may criticise the current policy but that is a different matter." 
 
 It is not clear who will actually pick up the award, to be presented in Oslo on 10 December. Jagland said it was up to "EU institutions" to decide which individual would pick up the gold medal and give a lecture at the presentation ceremony. One obvious candidate is the former German chancellor Helmut Kohl, though he is in poor health. ||||| The EU has been nominated many times for the prize in the past but has never won it because the Union is politically controversial, not least in Norway, the home of the Nobel peace prize, a country which rejected membership twice, in two referendums. 
 
 "The union and its forerunners have for over six decades contributed to the advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe," said the Nobel prize committee. 
 
 In its citation the Nobel committee acknowledged that the EU was today facing turmoil as the economic defects of the euro have laid waste to many Southern European countries and have plunged all Europe into the worst recession for 80 years. 
 
 "The EU is currently undergoing grave economic difficulties and considerable social unrest," said the citation. 
 
 "The Norwegian Nobel Committee wishes to focus on what it sees as the EU's most important result: the successful struggle for peace and reconciliation and for democracy and human rights. The stabilizing part played by the EU has helped to transform most of Europe from a continent of war to a continent of peace." 
 
 Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, hailed the choice, and insisted that efforts to save the euro with the imposition of controversial austerity policies was part of the EU's tradition as a peace project. 
 
 "I often say that the euro is more than a currency and we should not forget that in these weeks and months we spend working to strengthen the euro. 
 
 "The euro is more than a currency because at the end of the day it is about the original idea of a union of peace and of values," she told reporters. 
 
 The award has been welcomed by many European leaders as an encouragement for greater unity as the eurozone crisis threatens to tear the EU apart, and as southern Europe is hit by an economic crash and growing social conflict largely caused by flaws in the European single currency. 
 
 Herman Van Rompuy, president of the European Council, and Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, described the award as a "tremendous honour". 
 
 "This prize is the strongest possible recognition of the deep political motives behind our Union: the unique effort by ever more European states to overcome war and divisions and to jointly shape a continent of peace and prosperity," they said in a joint statement. 
 
 "It is a prize not just for the project and the institutions embodying a common interest, but for the 500 million citizens living in our Union." 
 
 But behind the celebrations, a typical EU turf war broke out between Mr Barroso, Mr Van Rompuy and Martin Schulz, the president of the European Parliament, over which EU president should collect the prize. 
 
 In a bid to settle the squabble, Cecilia Malmstrom, Sweden's European Commisisoner, suggested on Twitter that sending 27 children from each of the EU countries to Oslo would be the solution. 
 
 The prize, which is worth a million euros (£800,000) will do little to help the EU's debt and banking crisis which has so far cost over €6 trillion and will only be worth €0.002 for each of the Union's 500 million citizens. 
 
 Living standards in Greece have crashed as the economy has contracted 20 per cent in the last three years, with youth unemployment yesterday hitting 54 per cent and the country's social fabric has come under intense strain, including the rise of an explicitly neo-Nazi party. 
 
 In Spain, which is expected to ask for an EU bailout in the coming days after its government bonds were given junk status yesterday, the state is on the brink of fracturing under the pressure of the worst recession since the 1930s. 
 
 In recent weeks, senior military figures and veteran right-wing politicians have warned that the army might step in after Catalonia threatened to declare independence in a bid to extricate itself from a Spanish economy that has been destroyed by an asset bubble created by the euro's economic imbalances. 
 
 The prize comes as opinion polls show that trust in the EU has sunk to all time low of 31 per cent across Europe as many voters blame its bureaucratic targets and austerity measures for record levels of joblessness. 
 
 Comments and reaction has varied from delighted responses, especially from former European leaders, to appalled comment from eurosceptics. 
 
 Gerhard Schroeder, the former German chancellor, said; "This is an important and right decision by the Nobel Prize Committee and a big encouragement for the people in Europe. It comes at the right time for closer togetherness in Europe and it strengthens those powers that are pushing for closer integration in the European Union." 
 
 Valery Giscard d'Estaing, former president of France, said: "It is right that this extraordinary effort that has been accomplished by the Europeans and their leaders to establish a lasting peace on their continent - historically ravaged by war - is rewarded and honoured." 
 
 Martin Callanan, leader of the Euro-sceptic Conservatives and Reformists party in the European parliament, said: "The Nobel committee is a little late for an April fools joke. Twenty years ago this prize would have been sycophantic but maybe more justified. Today it is downright out of touch. 
 
 "Presumably this prize is for the peace and harmony on the streets of Athens and Madrid. The EU's policies have exacerbated the fallout of the financial crisis and led to social unrest that we haven't seen for a generation. 
 
 "The Nobel Peace Prize was devalued when it was given to newly-elected Barack Obama. By giving the prize to the EU the Nobel committee has undermined the excellent work of the other deserving winners of this prize." 
 
 Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor, greeted the news with sarcasm. "They'll be cheering in Athens tonight, won't they," he said. 
 
 Michael Fabricant, a Conservative backbencher, said the Nobel panel had shown "a total lack of ideas" in the giving the prize to the EU and previously to Mr Obama. 
 
 He said: "The Nobel judges have gone mad. They have now finally lost it. The biggest myth about the European Union is that it has prevented war in Europe again. What an insult to modern Germany!" 
 
 Douglas Carswell, another MP, said the decision was simply "hilarious". 
 
 Kristian Berg Harpviken, of Norway's peace research institute PRIO, said: "It will probably be very controversial. Especially in Norway, it will be seen as a very, very political prize and a contribution to the Norwegian EU debate." 
 
 Denmark's Europe minister, Nicolai Wammen said: "We can of course laugh at this, and there are many problems in the EU. It is certainly not a perfect union but it is a strong message that a lot has gone right also since the creation of the EU."
– The Nobel committee has made some strange choices over the years, but awarding its peace prize to the European Union "may be the most bizarre decision in the history of the award," writes Dashiell Bennett at the Atlantic. So naturally, it's got people talking. Here's what they're saying. Bennett thinks the decision makes sense in the long run. "However, as many people are pointing out, awarding the prize to the EU in 2012 seems odd," given the economic and societal turmoil plaguing it. The award "is a classic example of an organization jumping the shark. Quite how anyone could suggest this with a straight face I am not sure," writes Tim Worstall, a self-proclaimed "extremist" against the EU, in Forbes. He points out that it's bizarre to praise an undemocratic organization for promoting democracy, and says the continent's peace is more NATO's doing than the EU's. "Who did the Nobel Prize committee actually call to inform the European Union it won?" wonders Bernd Rigert at Deutsche Welle. Still, he thinks the organization is a "worthy" winner. "The European Union is a peace project," he argues. "People who talk and trade with each other do not shoot each other." "In the broad scheme of things, the EU has been a force for good and it seemed to be in need of a pep talk," agrees Matthew Yglesias at Slate. But there's an elephant in the room: Norway itself isn't part of the EU, and "they've built an amazingly free and prosperous (albeit small society for themselves." Rich and natural resources and with a responsive democracy, it wants no part of the bureaucracy it's praising. For more reactions, see our original post on the award.