Paris/London - Eurosceptic politicians in France and Britain condemned the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to the EU as “a joke”, given the social strife in countries such as Greece and Spain.
“Presumably this prize is for the peace and harmony on the streets of Athens and Madrid,” Martin Callanan, a conservative lawmaker in the European Parliament said, calling the award a belated “April fools joke”.
“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,” Callanan, who is the leader of the parliament's European Conservatives and Reformists group, said.
In giving the prize to the EU the Nobel committee had “undermined the excellent work of the other deserving winners of this prize,” he said.
Marine Le Pen, leader of France's far right National Front said the Nobel committee was “forever discredited” by its choice, which rewarded “social war” rather than peace.
“The European Union is today the biggest factor of disunity and rising tensions between European nations,” she said accusing the 27-member bloc of stoking “ferocious competition” and “sacrificing prosperity everywhere”.
The prize “rewarded economic and social war everywhere between peoples, which can only lead to war itself,” she declared in a statement on the party's website headline: “The Nobel peace prize has become the Nobel war prize.” - Sapa-dpa