EU to receive 2012 Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo

PanARMENIAN.Net - The European Union will receive the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize at a ceremony in Oslo on Monday, Dec 10, honored by the Norwegian committee for bringing decades of peace and democracy to Europe after the horrors and division of two world wars, Reuters reports.

"The stabilizing part played by the EU has helped to transform most of Europe from a continent of war to a continent of peace," the Nobel committee said on October 12 when it announced the EU had won, an unexpected decision.

"The division between East and West has to a large extent been brought to an end; democracy has been strengthened; many ethnically based national conflicts have been settled."

Moments after being announced as the winner, the EU and its institutions were at odds over who should receive the prize and who the Nobel trustees were specifically honoring.

In the end it was decided that the award was for all Europeans, but it will be picked up by the heads of the EU's three main institutions.

They are Herman Van Rompuy, president of the European Council of leaders of member countries, Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the EU's executive European Commission, and Martin Schulz, president of the elected European Parliament.

Four young Europeans, including a 12-year-old Spanish girl and a 21-year-old woman from Poland, will also attend the ceremony after winning competitions, and 20 EU heads of state and government have also flown in for the high-profile occasion.

The prize money of 930,000 euros ($1.25 million) will be given to projects that help children struggling in war zones, with the recipients to be announced next week. The EU has said it will match the prize money, so that a total of 2 million euros will be given to the selected aid projects.