Today the Nobel committee announced
that it had awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to the European Union. According to the
Washington Post,
“The EU is currently undergoing grave
economic difficulties and considerable social unrest,” Nobel Committee
president Thorbjoern Jagland said in Oslo. “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.”
Personally, I think the
choice of the EU is inspired but perhaps misses the mark a little. The EU was
founded as an economic bloc that took on political characteristics. Although the EU does fund worthwhile aid and development
projects, and has engaged in fruitful diplomatic efforts around the world, it
is still relatively young and undeveloped as a political actor. Only recently did the EU create an EU
diplomatic corps headed by Baroness Ashton.
NATO and the Organization for Security and Cooperation (OSCE) are
European entities that actually contributed more to peace through their own
efforts, one could say. Both entities
contributed to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of Soviet Communism as a
threat to world peace.
The main contribution of the
EU to peace was not in anything that it did politically, but merely through its
sheer existence. The creation of the
European common market wedded postwar Germany to the rest of Europe and quashed
the nationalistic urges which had led to two World Wars in Europe. Eastern European countries modernized and set
aside conflicts to meet EU membership criteria.
In other words, the process of applying and joining the EU served the
purposes of peace; in that regard, perhaps the appropriate EU representative at
the Oslo ceremonies should be the EU enlargement commissioner. Yet ironically, the EU membership process
seems to have stalled out after the impending membership of Croatia, with
Turkey and many others waiting for consideration. The main tool of the EU for promoting peace
is not actually being used at the moment.
In any event, if the EU
qualifies for the Nobel Peace Prize, then let me be the first to nominate ASEAN
for the Nobel Peace Prize. Unlike the
EU, ASEAN was specifically designed as a political entity first, and an
economic entity later. Since its
founding, ASEAN has by and large promoted peace throughout Southeast Asia, with
no two ASEAN members having gone beyond border skirmishes. In fact, the ability of ASEAN to tamp down
regional disputes, such as in last year’s Preah Vihear dispute, demonstrates
why it has contributed more to peace (as an active participant) than the EU
has. ASEAN also was instrumental in bringing about
reforms in Myanmar, both through Myanmar’s participation in ASEAN and through
the increased engagement of ASEAN institutions in Myanmar.
However, the Nobel Peace
Prize would be even more deserved if ASEAN could solve some of the intractable
regional issues such as the South China Sea island disputes and transboundary haze.
The ASEAN Secretariat could certainly use the prize money of 10 million Swedish
kronors, which is the equivalent to 10% of its annual budget. Let’s hope that
ASEAN can continue to develop itself as a regional institution and win that
Nobel Peace Prize one day.
