Tantrix: You know what the absurdity is? The head nominators is the general secretary of the Council of Europe. Basically it means the EU nominated itself.
Oh, not this again. The Council of Europe has NOTHING to do with the European Union. The Council of Europe is Europe's human rights watchdog, with its European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
As for everyone pointing out the Balkans, the failure of Member States does not mean that the EU as an organisation failed. The fact that it was quick to offer assistance, development aid and afterwards the possibility of accession has done much to alleviate the troubling and violent atmosphere in the Balkans.
Concerning the Union's predecessors, the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community (I didn't mention Euratom for a reason) were responsible for ensuring that preconditions exist that we no longer find it possible to engage in warfare. Need I remind everyone of the economic crisis of 1947? Of course, the dollars the USA sent helped immensely with the current account deficit existing at the time and the Organisation for European Economic Cooperation and the European Payments Union showed how important cooperation in the economic field actually was. Reading the entire Schuman declaration (not just the most quoted piece) shows how precarious the situation was at the time in the minds of leading politicians.
All of this is not to say that the EU and its forerunners never did mistakes or that more could had and could be done today. But as far as Europe itself is concerned, it is much better of thanks to economic integration. Foreign policy on the other hand, was and still remains a purvey of Member States and the EU as an organisation has limited tools at its disposal (mostly economic). For the rest, please, pin the blame on the states, not the EU.