brilliant!!

Sorry, guess it should read $1,000,000 above!

What a joke, next prize goes to me for sexiest man in the world! Who gives out this crap..

Do we get a nice cash prize each???

it never had any credibility to start with, it was founded by the inventor of “weapons of mass destruction”, like if Jimmy Savile started a prize for “save the child” what credibility would that have

Almost as bad as that Enrico Fermi guy, who split the atom and therin invented nuclear weapons.

@Aonghus Collins Fermi didn’t split the atom. Walton and Cockcroft split the atom. Walton was Irish by the way.

no, what war did it prevent?

People seem to forget it was originally established to prevent any more wars in Europe. There was constant conflict in Europe for hundreds and hundreds of years. It was WW2 and the Iron curtain which finally made everyone realise they had to pull together. Whatever about the economy it’s been a success in this regard. With the exception if the UK who seem to enjoy their warmongering. Oh well

Andrew – thats like asking the names of the people who’s lives were saved by road safety initiatives.
There have been no wars between member nations (to my limited historical knowledge).

It was originally created as a trade organisation.

It’s subsequently morphed into a tool for federalisation.

The absence of war in Europe during this period can be ascribed to a reaction to the horror of WWII and fear of nuclear holocaust.

Damocles, I see Kevin Myers got in trouble for presenting opinions as fact.

The horror of WWII happened not too long after the horror of WW1.
Who among us in recent decades is really concerned about the possibility of a nuclear holocaust due to war in Europe?

I would personally ascribe the absence of hostilities to closer integration, free trade, economic co-operation and, yes a ceding of sovereignty through federalisation. A war is less likely between two nations who are trading profitably with each other.

I’d rather restrict my nationalism to football, language and culture.

You’d ascribe, I’d ascribe, we’d all ascribe all sorts of things to all sorts of other things.

But correlation does not imply causation.

During a period of ever encroaching European Federalisation there has been no war in Europe, that doesn’t mean that ever encroaching European Federalisation has prevented war in Europe.

How many European countries have been involved and par-took in the Iraq war …. yeah, you are right, other than the Yugoslav conflict, the war in Northern Ireland we havent had any wars on the continent in the last 30 years.

But lets count all the countries that jumped at the chance of going to slaughter 300,000 iraqi civilians duering Iraq II.

UK,
Poland
Czech Republic
Italy
Germany
to name but a few…..
How many have been supplying guns and arnaments across the conflict zones in the world?? UK and France defo spring to mind…..

Yep, the EU and its member states are all bloody brilliant and should be sooo proud of their peace record.

Now, how many wars has the likes of the Republic of Ireland been involved in, in the last 20 years. We and Switzerland together should have got the award, and the prize money could have been used to pay off the German/French/British banks who need our money so badly, to maintain the stranglehold they have on the rest of Europe

The point is that there’s peace between all member nations. It’s not world peace but its a good template for Middle Eastern, Asian and African countries to follow. Since we were once as war torn as they are.

Most wars in Europe over the last 250 years were between France and Germanic imperial ambitions to control Europe. The EU was a way of working together and controlling Europe together. Sharing the continent together is what has maintained the peace. War kept ending in stalemate and destruction for both sides.

Eu decision are decided by Germany and France and others follow or are told to follow.

I have no doubt that social disorder and conflict will break out again in parts of Europe, due to this crisis and the EU’s massive role in it. This awar

Correlation often does imply causation – it doesn’t prove causation and often causes poeple to incorrectly conclude causation. But, at the risk of disappearing up my own arse, I would suggest that there is a correlation between correlation and causation.

But if your point is that we can’t definitively prove that the EU has prevented war then that is true, we can only opine.

@ Cal1 – “We” and the Swiss should have got the award? Because we’re a far more peaceful nation then the others you’ve mentioned? A bit of historical revisionism going on there, my friend…

“we can’t definitively prove that the EU has prevented war … that is true”

Thank you.

Not to mention its power to reduce corruption and improve human rights in aspiring member nations.

@ Stephen – if people accepted the rationality in what you’re saying, they’d have to find something else to moan about. Therefore, what you’re saying couldn’t possibly be true.

Can anyone point out a historical precedent for such a pro longed period of peace in North America, before McDonalds came to Canada.

Nations that repeatedly fought each other.

Thank you, you glorious Clown of Peace.

Before the EU. Well there was Pax Romana, the Roman Peace for around 200 years…

The reason for the prolonged peace were having 2 vastly destructive wars within 25 years put people off war,
and the atom bomb. It wasn’t the EU or Europe that kept the Russian tanks from Western Europe…

SaintRuth, you cite another pan-European economic and political union (a 2000 year old precedent!); perhaps there is something to be said for pooling sovereignty of nation states for the purpose of peace.
You’re right that the two world wars put people off war- their response was to create the EU as a vehicle to avoid further wars among its members- which is has completely succeeded in doing. The peace prize celebrates the EU’s achievement in avoiding wars among its members; it wasn’t designed to deal with external threats like Russia.

Yes, this right on the heels of Inda on the cover of Time saving our country from it/s woes, what more global recognition could a country ask for?

The prize was degraded when they gave it to Barack Obama when he just became president of the USA. In reality they gave it to him because he was the first black president.

Seriously, it was degraded when they give it to Henry Kissinger.

too true dave.

Was just thinking the same, they lost all credibility with that one. But even if they hadn’t, they would have lost it with this one.

Maybe Merkyl the Jackal!

Me thinks Enda and Gimpmore. … those two planks never miss a photo opporunity

Enda and Gilmore for all their faults are democratically elected. The EU will make sure that it will be a nominated person rather than anyone subjected to a popular vote to get where they are.

Disagree. The Irish are not quite as bad as the Vogons. Almost, but not quite.

Z? you could be correct. I married a Vogon.

To be fair the comments section of this site is far from an accurate representation of “The Irish”

@ Patrick – funny you say that, I’ve my suspicions that my ex- was secretly hiding her Vogon heritage before we tied the knot. It seems more common than people think. Their reliance on property development should’ve been a red flag. And the poetry was bloody awful too. Not like us.. Wait a minute…

yes Z? their poetry is a dead giveaway – it is said to be the third worst in the universe, if I remember correctly.

It replaced military conflict with economic conflict. It’s the lesser of two evils.

It did not replace conflict. Yugoslavia was in Europe. Northern Ireland is in Europe. Cyprus is in Europe.

No-one said that it was 100% perfect, but in the history of Europe, Britian and France not taking potshots at each other was the exception, not normality. War is essentially driven by greed. Give a people an alternative path to obtain what they covet, and they’ll probably won’t blow each other up. There has not been a war within the EU of the scale of the wars that occurred within the EU territories before the establishing of the EEC / EU. It’s a good thing to know that it’s extremely unlikely that you will be drafted into the military, but that was common practise in times gone by. Short memories lead to complacency.

The Cyprus conflict is with Turkey, no? Turkey is not in the EU and furthermore the conflict over Northern Cyprus would seem to be at least one of the roadblocks to them joining.
Yugoslavia was not in the EU.
The prize wasn’t awarded to the continent of Europe, it was to the EU.

The Northern Ireland conflict was not a war between nations.

I don’t think that anyone is suggesting that the EU is the panacea for all conflicts around the world.

Two questionable awards :P

I’d say just every award since then.

Gagsy the dutch army were in Srebrenica & handed over the control of the refugees there to the VRS. 8000 Bosniaks died as a direct result & more were tortured & raped.Turkey is a partner to the EU just like Norway & Switzerland. Also the Cyprus conflict has not been resolved properly & Cyprus is in the EU.

You pro-bailout yourself then David?

No one’s pro-bailout. We’d rather have the money to run this country by ourselves, but we don’t so we’ve no choice but to borrow. Beggers can’t be choosers and you don’t bite the hand that feeds you.

How much of the bailout pays for the running of the country David…or to put it simply – how much have we received in faux charity and how much of it gets paid into banks and bondholders?

emmm…. you dont need Mr Higgins to answer that one …

We got a bailout of 64 billion euro … which has now been converted to sovereign debt. Our Bank Bailout is 67 billion euro. So, Mr Higgins can support the bailout mechanism as much as he wants. Its a truee FFG/Labour/FF trait. Big business ahead of the average tax payer in ireland at all costs. Lets see what the next budget does to address this … no wait as econd, we dont need to…. FFG have already rejected the idea of imposing a Financial services tax on any transactions between the big invest companies/banks in the IFSC.
Yep, FFG have it all sorted out, for themselves.

Beggars can’t be choosers but countries shouldn’t go pimping themselves out either and pretend that it is going to resolve the situation when every economic and historical example shows that this approach (severe austerity) does not work and actually increases economic decline and collapse.

David, we did not get a bailout, we got a loan with crippling conditions attached at a high interest rate from the people whose banks we saved, so we could cover their losses.

Greece got a bailout when they had a big chunk of debt written off.

Cal your numbers are misleading there. Yes we’ve recieved bailout money almost equal to what we’ve put into the banks, but most of the money went into the banks BEFORE we got the bailout. At the point of the bailout, even defaulting on all our bank debts wouldn’t have been enough to not need a bailout. It’s also misleading to suggest that not paying the money into the banks would have prevented a bailout because the possible collapse of those banks would have had massive knock on effects on the economy, promting a bailout anyway.

incorrect David. The main cause of our woes, Anglo, was not a systemic bank and could have been let go to the wall without “massive knock on effects on the economy, promting a bailout anyway.”

Bail-Out, bail-out, bail-out. Not the topic of this article. Although I’m sure someone will claim soon enough that the “underlying” theme of every article is the bail-out. Expand your hobby-base.

Given that they won’t, the fact that pretty much all “the bail out is evil” commenters ignore is that, while a bail-out was “mainly” necessary to cover the massive cost of saving the Irish banking system, if the banking system had not been propped up it would have collapsed, leaving us without a banking system. Businesses wouldn’t have been able to trade and people would not have been paid. Des positives would have lost their savings. I very much doubt the perpetually outraged would have been any less outraged in this alternative scenario. A rock and a hard place. The moral of the story is not that propping up the banks was good., but that we lacked then and need for the future is a viable contingency plan to have in reserve in case of another banking system collapse.

@we’rejammin if that’s your real name…..

I agree Anglo was not a systemic bank from the point of view of ordinary deposit holders/savers etc, but don’t think it didn’t have links with the banks that do!

A collapse of Anglo may well have brought down the rest of the Irish banking system overnight, something we saw happen in Iceland. Their economy is a tiny fraction of the size of Ireland’s, yet their collapse created a massive hold in British banks. The knock on effect of a collapse of Anglo would not only have been felt in the Irish banks but subsequently in the rest of the European banking system, at a time when everything was all so fragile.

You’re probably going to respond with how good things are in Iceland now. You’re right they’ve recovered quite quickly, but only because their collapse was small enough to be contained. Comparing Iceland to a hypothetical Irish default is apples and organes. We’re in the Eurozone, they’re not.

I don’t want history books to write that a collapse of an Irish bank brought down the entire world economy or at least seriously damaged the European economy for a generation. Do you?

Max Keiser “They cud have given this prize to Bill Clinton’s left testicle & it wud have been more legitimate” http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Ty1OQBjJmeY

The Propaganda machine is oiled and in 5th gear..

@ David , in situations like these, the “if that’s your real name” line is a bit silly. It makes you look pompous and damages you far more than your opponent.

Yes David, werejammin is my real name. Bob marley was my daddy my mammy had a great sense of humour.

You can go with your ‘m,ay well have’ but I’ll stick with the experts who have stated that an anglo collapse would not have took down our systemic banks and would have affected the larger european banks the most.

Which makes sense.

unlike your post.

Sorry David Higgins, but what you have written is not true.

Pure conjecture.
By the same reasoning the sports bag I have hanging out in the shed containing various comic books and old gaming tapes since 2000 has prevented the planet being overrun by 6 legged purple and yellow giant moon men, I don’t see many 6 legged purple and yellow giant moon men around so it must work and I wasn’t even in the running for this award.

Of course its conjecture but its not unreasonable to suggest or even conclude that developing deeper integration and inter-dependency between countries would significantly reduce the possibility of war between those countries.
The cause of a non-occurrence of something can’t be definitively proven in this context but there are logically plausible and likely correlative effects between the absence of war and the formation of the EU.
Your analogy using a highly unlikely event and another obviously unconnected event is trite.

We won’t know if my bag works until I dispose of it, where or when has the EU stepped in to peacefully conclude a dispute between member states?
By praising the EU for preventing wars that never appeared apparent is equally trite

Not equally trite.

There is no reasonable or plausible link between your bag and the absence of an alien invasion.

There is at least a plausible link between the formation of the EU and the absence of war between members of the EU.

So you’re much triter than I am!

Dermot, here’s another analogy then, if you stop smoking say at 30 and live to be 90 and don’t get lung cancer, it’s a reasonable conjecture to make that giving up the fags helped you live to be 90.

It’s not near plausible, it’s spin but I’m secretly betting that you EU loyalists have access to time travel, how else would you be so convinced by your arguments and of course the assertion Ireland would be some backwater state on the north west Atlantic trapped in some hellish 1940 groundhogs day, forelock tugging peasants devoid of morality and a lack of infrastructure and economy, socially bankrupt and wholly dependent on charity to survive if it wasn’t for the EU…….(pick the irony out of that one :P)

Yes William, intensive medical research has concluded that giving up cigarettes greatly improves your chances of a long and healthy life.

Hee-Haw Liam!
From one of the 500 million donkeys to another.

I’m not David, something I’m quite happy about. But it seems to me that the only quantifiable definition of the “Irish” would be the sum of all people who hold Irish passports. The Assets they own and the culture, history and social and governmental structures are all secondary to this.

So there were no Irish people before 1922? Interesting…
Do you believe the Kurds exist at all?

The independent of Ireland was the legitimisation of Irish nationality. Before independence “Irish” was not a legitimate national identity. Making it so was one mains reasons behind the struggle for independence. Otherwise, what was the point? The same applies today to the Kurds and the Catalan and Basque peoples. Every cultural group has a right to a national identity, but until those people form a nation, they do not yet have a national identity, only a cultural identity.

Here’s something you never see on d’internet: Okay, I see your point.

How is the threat of war within the EU higher than 5 years ago? Demonstration and protest is not war, if that’s where you’re going with this…