CYM on EU peace prize farce

Statement by the Connolly Youth Movement

16 October 2012

The comments made by the Nobel committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland, regarding the EU’s commitment to peace and democracy, upon the announcement that the European Union had won this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, are a revolting affront to all victims of EU policy whether it be military related or economic.

To award a prize that supposedly rewards efforts to maintain global peace to a body that has partaken in every war from Korea to Libya, has for decades inflicted imperial bloodshed upon nations and peoples in every corner of the Earth, spends 194 billion euro a year on its military and has nearly five
millions troops at its disposal, is a sick joke on behalf of the Nobel Prize committee.

This, the latest in a long line of undeserving recipients, has further discredited this shambolic honour. To praise the EU for its democratic qualities ignores the absolute famine of true democracy that exists within the EU and the fact that the EU removed two democratically elected governments (Italy and Greece) and replaced them with banker technocracies. Diktats from the EU are forced upon smaller states and Brussels imposes budgets that rip workers and families asunder through violent austerity.

The Connolly Youth Movement condemns the decision to award the European Union this award. The Connolly Youth Movement sees this as a painful kick for all those who are currently struggling against EU imperialism across Europe and the wider world. Ireland is another victim in the EU’s game of control over European nations and their workers’ with a compliant and complicit ruling class to impose their will.

Ireland, like so many others in the EU, has lost sovereign rights and economic independence by her membership of this political and economic cartel.