*** Bronislaw Geremek. Une voix en Europe. Éditions Economica (49 rue Héricart, F-75015 Paris) et Fondation Jean Monnet pour l'Europe (Ferme de Dorigny, CH-1015 Lausanne. Tel: (41-21) 6922090 - fax: 6922095 - E-mail: secr@fjme.unil.ch - Internet: http://www.jean-monnet.ch ). "Cahiers rouges" series. 2009, 133 pp, €21. ISBN 978-2-7178-5739-9.
Bronislaw Geremek, who died in tragic car accident, was, “an historian, political and social activist, as well as being a world level politician, wise, socially astute and benevolent amongst his peers…” Anyone who had the privilege of knowing Bronislaw Geremek know only too well how these words are not simply circumstantial but acutely accurate. These words open the homage paid to Geremek by his colleague Henryk Samsonowicz, a Professor at the University of Warsaw, who preceded him as the Minister for Education in the Polish government by just a few years, immediately after the fall of the Communist regime. Samsonowicz was one of those who, at the request of the Jean Monnet Foundation for Europe (of which Geremek had been president for two years when he died on the Polish roads in July last year), agreed to talk about this, “citizen and historian of Europe”, this expert in medieval history, this teacher and Polish and European statesman. Through their testimonies in this splendid version of the Cahier rouge, they describe the remarkable richness and diversity of this figure who had been a Marxist in his youth but whose final days would be as a member of the European Liberals and Democrats at the European Parliament.
Nobody will be surprised that several of the written eulogies for Geremek come from historians. Jean-François Bergier, Emeritus Professor at the Ecole Polytechnique fédérale of Zurich, recounts his meeting as a young man from Lausanne with a Polish student, “the first of the history students to come to the West”, in student Paris of May 1956 and which would produce a fifty year friendship that Geremek wanted to celebrate by inviting him to the College of Europe in Natollin. Jacques Le Goff, the French medieval historian depicts an historian of society and the excluded, who served as his guide in Warsaw during the autumn of 1959, a Communist out of idealism but who already felt betrayed by the regime. There is also a contribution from Cesary Lewanowicz, the former coordinator at the European Civilisation Chair at the College of Europe, who highlights the trajectory of a man of ceaseless energy, whose activities ranged from his clandestine teaching activities in Poland to his work at the Chairs of the Sorbonne and Natolin. Patrick Piffaretti, the Director of the Lausanne Foundation also reaffirms in his introduction, “the importance of knowing and knowledge of where we are going through our questions”. Another historian and former Polish foreign affairs minister, Wladyslaw Bartoszewski described the career of a young Polish Jew who did not oppose his horror of war to the tragedy of the Holocaust and his total distrust of totalitarianism to his, “faith in the soul of Europe”. The last signatories are more political and begin with a contribution from Jerzy Burzek for whom Geremek was the Foreign Affairs Minister in 1997-2000 and whom in this capacity was signatory to Poland's entry into NATO. “Our dreams have become reality…” is how the President of the European Parliament describes the situation, which would have delighted his compatriot too. Another former president of the Jean Monnet Foundation, José Maria Gil-Robles describes activities undertaken by “Bronek” (as he was known by his friends) in the final years of his life in the corridors of Brussels, Strasbourg and Lausanne. A high note in the publication is the homage paid by Helmut Kohl, who, a few months previously, had awarded him the Foundation's Gold Medal.
Bronislaw Geremek was, however, as the sub-title of the book appropriately indicated, “a voice in Europe”. The major advantage of the Cahier rouge is to continue the work began with four unprecedented speeches and interviews. Patrick Piffaretti describes Geremek as, “a committed intellectual, never complacent, with an unshakeable faith in the Union of Europe and who, far from stopping short at observations and analyses, possessed the two-fold capacity of coming up with ideas and constant engagement”. As proof, the invitation to imagine that one day, there would actually be a possible merger of the stable president of the European Council and Commission and the address he made to the two major nuclear superpowers, to offer this weapon of deterrence to the Union. There is also, ultimately, a robust appeal for strengthening European citizenship and, based on this, education about Europe, so that it ceases to be a concern of the “elites” and becomes a task of increasing the number of the “initiated”, which would mark the dawning of a political Europe. Bronislaw Geremek also presents, in the form of some beautiful photographs gathered together in this book, a final invitation, “Europeans apply the term construed by Isocrat in 390 B.C., which affirms that the city state had ceased to use the name Greek for a race but rather to describe a culture and that we call Greeks those who participate in our education rather than those who share the same origins as us”. This is of crucial food for thought, given recent knee-jerk isolationist reactions, whether these are national, regional or European and which appear to be winning out over those that seek to revive the original Community dream.
Michel Theys
*** SOPHIE HEINE: Une gauche contre l'Europe ? Les critiques radicales et altermondialistes contre l'Union européenne en France. Éditions de l'Université de Bruxelles (26 av. Paul Héger, CP 163, B-1000 Brussels. Tel: (32-2) 6503799 - fax: 6503794 - E-mail: editions@admin.ulb.ac.be - Internet: http: //www-editions-universite-bruxelles.be). "Etudes européennes" series. 2009, 190pp, €22. ISBN 978-2-8004-1456-0.
This book is the result of an adaptation of a doctoral thesis at the Université libre de Bruxelles, and is inspired from the young political scientist's desire to clarify the idealistic basis to the Left's resistance to the European Union, as expressed in France during the referendum on the Constitutional treaty. To this end, Sophie Heine examines the ideological production of “Euro-critical ideas” expressed by the French Communist Party, the Revolutionary Communist League (LCR) (now the New Anti-capitalist Party) and the anti-globalisation movement, Attac. She interprets their discourse on the basis of four ideological-types formulated in the forms of questions. Firstly, is their vision of the market economy categorised by economic liberalism, Keynesianism or Marxism? She then asks whether their concept of democracy is based on political liberalism, republicanism or Marxism. She also looks at whether national identity is characterised by patriotism, Euro-patriotism or internationalism. Finally, she examines whether their strategy for social change is reformist or revolutionary. At the end of this investigation, Ms Heine begins to look at the nuances contained in the “anti-Europe” label, too often pinned to these actors, "their criticism of the contemporary state of European construction is not motivated out of a principled refusal of supra-national integration, nationalist reflexes but by an aspiration to orientate this integration towards a deepening in many other domains". Only the LCR has an international approach on a global level. At a socio-economic level, the LCR again distinguishes itself from the other currents, which are more social-Keynesian in orientation and call for private property and competition rules to be subordinated to defined social democratic criteria, although their target is more neo-liberalism than capitalism. Once again, except for the LCR, the actors examined base their criticism of European integration on a liberal political ideology, which watered down by what they perceive as economic liberalism, produces a kind of “social liberalism". Finally, it is exclusively the LCR again which adopts a revolutionary perspective for social change in general and reorientation of European integration in particular. The other currents favour a "reformist and legalistic strategy". In conclusion, the author audaciously advances a hypothesis of "social-democratisation" in the Left's resistance to the European Union, at the same time as a "Europeanization" of this resistance.
(MT)
*** BEATE KOHLER-KOCH, FABRICE LARAT (Editors): European Multi-Level Governance. Constrasting Images in National Research. Edward Elgar Publishing (The Lypiatts, 15 Lansdown Road, Cheltenham, Glos, GL50 2JA, UK. Tel: (44-1242) 226934 - fax: 262111 - E-mail: e-elgar.co.uk - Internet: http://www.e-elgar.com ). 2009, 222 pp. ISBN 978-1-84720-222-2.
Multi-level governance has become one of the most high-profile research domains in European studies. It is also one of the least mature or coherent areas of research because it varies so sharply from country to country and there are few areas of research where work is undertaken in common. This is where "Connex" plays a role: based on the idea that knowledge cannot be summed up in terms of literary bestsellers (coming from the US, UK and Germany), this initiative brings together studies from different disciplines and languages in the same network on the web. This publication is the result of a centralisation project and throughout its seven chapters, the writers illustrate the diversity of the research in different geographical areas in an effort to identify some general trends and weaknesses, as well as to determine how the research agenda should be put together in the future. This book brings to life a first praise-worthy step towards maturity in the concept of European governance.
(TBa)
*** ANDRÉ LECOURS, GENEVIÈVE NOOTENS (Editors): Dominant Nationalism, Dominant Ethnicity. Identity, Federalism and Democracy. Éditions Presses Interuniversitaires Européennes / Peter Lang (1 av. Maurice, B-1050 Brussels. Tel: (41-32) 3761717 - fax: 3761727 - E-mail: info@peterlang.com - Internet: http://www.peterlang.com ). "Regionalism & Federalism" series, No. 15. 2009, 234 pp, €35.90. ISBN 978-90-5201-487-6.
This book was developed by political scientists and philosophers and seeks to examine the different notions of what denotes ethnicity in democratic countries. Increasing numbers of researchers are analysing how a state and/or a majority group interact with minority groups and explore whether the idea of the nation promoted by the state does not in fact conceal a specific ethnic core. By way of a multi-disciplinary study, the different writers demonstrate that the construction of a nation or its consolidation is often carried out by a specific ethno-cultural group, which will not hesitate to project and promote, even impose an identity, which will then be contested, negotiated or questioned by minority groups. These democratic issues are firstly examined from an historical point of view by looking at how the state, the borders, the constitutionalism and legal systems were developed. After a comparison of the different nationalisms that dominate in France and the Netherlands, the different essays then outline specific and dominant cases of nationalism and ethnicity within the constraints of the Canadian state compared to those in its neighbour, the US. It also examines Indonesia, where the state does not focus on a common cultural identity but rather a “multi-national accommodation”. The book also contains different insights into the future of federalism and looks at the “federations from below” - the federated states - in the context of a global governance stuck in a stew of neo-liberal diktats. This “local” governance has a natural propensity to be become a counterweight, which, in the long term, could help to democratise the informal federation, which dictates the rules.
(NDu)
*** Fedechoses… pour le fédéralisme. Presse fédéraliste (Maison de l'Europe, 18 av. Félix Faure, F-69007 Lyon. Internet: http://www.pressefederaliste.eu ). 2009, No. 145, 28 pp, €3. Annual subscription: €15.
This first edition provides a sketch of José-Manuel Barroso sitting behind an object described as the "Secretariat of the European Council", with the caption, "Blast, another 5 years!" This federalist newsletter therefore keeps up the good fight and, more seriously, in its editorial, appeals for a Constitution and a federal government is set on the task of developing a "fighting front" of federalists as the European Parliament and in civil society, particularly at the new federalists intergroup of MEPs. Barbed arrows are also aimed at the principle of unanimity, which it describes as a"27-headed criminal". Nicolas Schmitt points out in his essay that Switzerland managed to become the second oldest federal state in the world precisely because it challenged the unanimity principle.
(MT)
*** Dokumente & Documents. Zeitschrift für den deutsch-französichen Dialog - Revue du dialogue franco-allemand. Gesellschaft für übernationale Zusammenarbeit (86 Dottendorfer Str., D-53129 Bonn. Tel: (49-228) 9239810 - E-mail: kontakt@guez-dokumente.org - Internet: http://www.zeitschrift-dokumente.de ) and Bureau International de Liaison et de Documentation (50 rue de Laborde, F-75008 Paris. Tel: (33-1) 43879030 - fax: 42935094 - E-mail: revue@bild-documents.org - Internet: http://www.revuedocuments.com ). 2009, No. 3-4, 194 pp, €10.
This issue of the Revue du dialogue franco-allemand (Journal on Franco-German Dialogue) was launched in the autumn of 1945, barely four months after the end of the Second World War, by the father of Jean du Riveau, who sought to, "provide different information", through different publications on, "facts and gestures made in each of the different countries in French and German, and forms an extremely valuable contribution. At the 60th anniversary of the German Federal Republic (at the same time as the RDA and 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall), the two publications decided to merge into a bilingual issue to demonstrate how relations between the two "hereditary enemies" have developed over this period. Extracts from the contributions illustrating this trajectory and new period of history and developments in attitudes make up a dossier where we find writings by Louis Aragon, Robert Aron, Willy Brandt, Alfred Grosser, Helmut Kohl, Alain Lamassoure, Karl Lamers, Joseph Rovan, Maurice Schumann, Hans Tietmeyer and many others.(MT)