The judges of the Norwegian Nobel Committee have sometimes displayed an unusual sense of timing when it comes to the award of the annual Peace Prize. In 2009, the committee caused controversy when it awarded the honour to Barack Obama after he had been less than a year in office. Its decision to award the Peace Prize to the EU provokes a similar debate about whether this is the right moment. Today the EU is mired in crisis, with economic and social turmoil raging through Greece and Spain, much of it inflamed by the eurozone’s debt problems. The immediate reaction of many to this award will therefore be one of surprise. The image that the EU projects today is hardly one of “peace”.

That said, the Nobel Committee is taking a long view of the EU’s history. As it says in its citation, the EU and its forerunners “have for over six decades contributed to the advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe”. Its judgment is correct. Since the 1950s, the economic integration of Europe’s nations has been a foundation stone of continental peace.

As many states have emerged from authoritarianism – Spain, Portugal and Greece in the 1970s and 1980s, and eastern Europe in the 1990s – the European community has welcomed them into its fold, giving liberation a profound economic underpinning. It is right for this to be rewarded in this way.