European Union wants more taxpayers’ money for wars

This 2012 Associated Press video from Oslo, Norway says about itself:

Protest against European Union winning the Nobel Peace Prize

SHOTLIST

1. Wide high angle of demonstration with torches lit
2. Close up of torches being lit
3. Wide of people holding torches at protest
4. Mid of people marching in protest with banner
5. Mid of man chanting “We have the right to protest war. By EU countries”
6. Close up of man marching with torch, chanting
7. SOUNDBITE (Greek) Dimitris Kodelas, Greek Syriza Party Member: ++TRANSLATED BY INTERVIEWEE++ “I think it is the people in the movements who really want peace and not the European Union, especially Mrs. Merkel and the others who tell us what we should do.”
8. Wide of people marching with torches
9. Close up of man marching with torch
10. SOUNDBITE (English) Elsa Enger, Grandmothers for Peace protester: “The peace prize was intentionally going to go to people who were not warmongers but pro disarmament, and we cannot say that about the EU. They are about as strong warmongers (as there are) in the world.”
11. Wide of people marching
12. Close up of people marching and arriving at parliament
13. Wide pan of people assembling outside of parliament
14. Zoom out from parliament to people assembled outside

STORYLINE: About 200 people protested against the European Union being awarded the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo on Sunday – a day before the prize-giving ceremony was due to take place in the Norwegian capital.

The protest was organised by the Peace Prize initiative 2012, which includes more than forty national and international organisations who have criticised the award being given to the EU. The protesters say the fact that the EU member states combined account for a military expenditure that is second only to the US make the union unfit for a peace prize.

… Nobel committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland will hand over the prize, worth 1.2 million US dollars, during a ceremony at Oslo City Hall on Monday, followed by a banquet at the Grand Hotel, against a backdrop of demonstrations in the EU-sceptic country that has twice rejected joining the EU.

The decision to award the prize to the EU has sparked harsh criticism, including from three peace laureates – South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Mairead Maguire of Northern Ireland and Adolfo Perez Esquivel from Argentina – who have demanded the prize money not be paid out this year. They say the bloc contradicts the values associated with the prize because it relies on military force to ensure security.

The EU is being granted the prize as it grapples with a debt crisis that has stirred deep tensions between north and south, caused soaring unemployment and sent hundreds of thousands into the streets to protest austerity measures.

Translated from Dutch daily De Volkskrant, 8 January 2018:

Juncker: European Union budget needs to increase to fulfill new tasks such as defense and security

The budget of the European Union must increase. According to President Juncker of the European Commission, the current expenditure of around 140 billion euros per year will not suffice, if the Union also wants to fulfill its new tasks (such as defense and security).

Lurching ever further to the right and to war
The European Union is becoming more militaristic and aggressive. It is even more essential that socialists accelerate Britain’s withdrawal from it, argues DOUG NICHOLLS.