Amid Unrest, Greeks Question EU's Nobel Prize

The awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to the European Union has stunned many Greeks who have been caught in more than 2 ½ years of protests, strikes and riots against austerity measures they blame European leaders for imposing on the country in return for bailouts.
Only days after 50,000 Greeks took to the streets to protest the visit of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose country is footing much of the rescue loans bill and who has been unrelenting in her demand for continued pay cuts, tax hikes and slashed pensions, the prize for peace went to the EU with the committee citing 60 years of stability on the continent.
The news was greeted in Greece with bewilderment and disbelief, the British newspaper The Guardian reported. During Merkel’s visit, protesting Greeks dressed in Nazi uniforms and many screamed epithets at the Troika of the European Union-International Monetary Fund-European Central Bank (EU-IMF-ECB) that has ordered continued austerity measures.
Panos Skourletis, spokesman for Greece’s major opposition Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) said the choice had “cheapened” and “harmed” the prize’s image, although past winners have included the likes of former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who won in 1973 while American was waging war in Vietnam, and U.S. President Barack Obama in 2009 while he continued wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“I just cannot understand what the reasoning would be behind it,” said Skourletis. “In many parts of Europe, but especially in Greece, we are experiencing what really is a war situation on a daily basis, albeit a war that has not been formally declared. There is nothing peaceful about it.”
Many Greeks put the blame for their troubles squarely on European leaders although Troika officials have blamed Greek politicians for packing public payrolls with hundreds of thousands of needless workers for generations in return for votes, drowning the country in debt.
“It’s a new kind of war, one without weapons but just as deadly,” Takis Kapeoldasis, a tattoo artist told The Guardian, giving voice to the mood at large. “I don’t want to be insulting but it’s Europe’s policies that have done us over and now it gets the prize of all prizes for peace and reconciliation.