Yesterday started with a long anticipated news, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has announced the Peace Nobel Prize for 2012. The Laureate was a great surprise for all the AEGEE members and all the Europeans, since the prize has been awarded to the European Union “for over six decades contributed to the advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe”.

Even though the prize mainly has been given to natural persons, organisations such as Amnesty International, International Labour Organization, International Committee of Red Cross or the UNICEF have been also awarded in the past.
This prize, on the 60th anniversary of the European Coal and Steel Community carries an extremely important message: keep calm and carry on! Through these six decades “most of Europe from a continent of war to a continent of peace”, said Thorbjørn Jagland, chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee when he announced the award in Oslo.
This prize showed us that we need to stop for a moment in our crisis-torn Europe, in our home and think about all those things which have been achieved in the past years, and also about the importance of further and stronger cooperation among the the citizens not only of the European Union but also whole Europe, since there is a lot of work and improvement yet to be done in our continent and in the world  We also hope that this prize will stimulate and increase efforts to solve existing conflicts through dialogue, diplomacy and other non-violent methods.

Peace and stability are also the core values of our association, therefore we shall also bear this message in mind and aim for a strong cooperation towards a democratic and peaceful Europe.

But this should also push us forward, thus AEGEE calls for peace in those European countries which are not Member States yet, and demands the EU for a stronger cooperation with our neighbouring countries in order to promote our values of peace and respect for Human Rights. We also wish that these countries can benefit soon from the positive impact of friendship and cooperation that this project has brought amongst the countries that are now members of the EU.

“It is a justified recognition of this unique project that has brought peace to our continent.”

 

In the interview after the announcement with Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, said: “ the European Union that united them [the nations] in peace around the values of respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, justice, rule of law and respect for human rights. And the European Union was able to do it through separate national institutions representing the common European interests.”

Written by Beata Matuszka,  Comité Directeur