The European Union has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for six decades of work in advancing peace in Europe.
The committee said the EU had helped to transform Europe from a continent of war to a continent of peace.
The award comes as the EU faces the biggest financial crisis of its 54-year history, with many of its member states mired in recession.
The last organization to be given the award outright was Medecins Sans Frontieres, which won in 1999.
Announcing the award, Nobel committee president Thorbjoern Jagland acknowledged the EU’s current financial problems and social unrest.
But he said the committee wanted to concentrate on the body’s work over six decades of advancing “peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights”.
Martin Schulz, president of the European Parliament, said he was “deeply touched and honored” with the award.
Senior EU officials are warning that it is proving harder than ever to reach an agreement on the European Union’s next multi-annual budget.
Ministers are meeting on Monday for further talks and EU leaders will hold a special summit in November to try to strike a budget deal.
The European Commission has proposed an overall budget of 1,033 billion euros ($1,337 billion) for 2014-2020.
Senior EU officials are warning that it is proving harder than ever to reach an agreement on the European Union's next multi-annual budget
Every six years or so, the EU has a big political fight about the size and structure of its next multi-annual budget.
At a time of economic crisis, that looming row is once again upon us.
The Commission points out that the budget it has proposed represents only about 1% of Europe’s income, and many countries are supportive.
They want to protect spending programmes from which they benefit, such as the Common Agricultural Policy or Regional Funding for poorer areas of the European Union.
But a number of influential countries argue that increased spending is not tenable and they want a real freeze in the size of the budget.
Ratings agency Moody’s has lowered its outlook for the European Union’s AAA credit rating to “negative” and warned that the bloc’s rating could be downgraded.
Moody’s said the move reflected the negative outlook for the ratings of the EU’s key budget contributors.
Earlier this year, Moody’s put ratings of Germany, France, Netherlands and the UK on a negative outlook.
It said that these nations were all exposed to the region’s debt crisis, hurting their creditworthiness.
Ratings agency Moody's has lowered its outlook for the European Union's AAA credit rating to "negative" and warned that the bloc's rating could be downgraded
The ratings agency said that in case of “extreme stress”, the AAA-rated member states were more likely to service their own debt obligations rather than “prioritize their commitment to backstop the EU debt obligations”.
It added that if the AAA-rated member states were to default on their debt obligations, there were likely to be defaults on the loans that back the EU’s debt and the bloc’s cash reserve was also likely be stressed.
“Hence, it is reasonable to assume that the EU’s creditworthiness should move in line with the creditworthiness of its strongest key member states,” the agency said.
Germany, France, Netherlands and the UK together account for about 45% of the EU’s budget revenue.
Moody’s warned that if the credit ratings of these member states were downgraded, it could have a knock-on effect on the EU’s rating.
“Additionally, a weakening of the commitment of the member states to the EU and changes to the EU’s fiscal framework that led to less conservative budget management would be credit-negative,” it added.
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