WEEKLY SUPPLEMENT / European library

*** ETTORE RECCHI, ADRIAN FAVELL (Ed): Pioneers of European Integration. Citizenship and Mobility in the EU. Edward Elgar (The Lypiatts, 15 Lansdown Road, Cheltenham, Glos, GL50 2JA, UK. Tel: [phone] - fax: 262111 - Email: [e-mail] - Internet: http://www.e-elgar.com ). 2009, 312 pp.. ISBN 978-1-84844-659-5.

And what would we do if those involved in constructing Europe were not those we believed them to be? It has always been true that Europe has been built according to the goals and misgivings of political leaders. Nonetheless, can it not perhaps be more sustainably constructed over time through the hearts and minds of all unknown Europeans, who have and who will continue, in increasing numbers, to make Europe their territory of life? One could not exist without the other and the evidence is there to prove it. The freedom of movement and the right that Europeans have to set up where they so wish in European Union, with the same rights as nationals, constitutes an ongoing psychological revolution, with Europe being embodied in the very lives of human beings and who, no matter what certain current or future political leaders might think, will never allow things to go back to what they were in the past.

Undoubtedly, some people will object to this book and pull it apart with tweezers because it is an extension of a research programme funded by the Commission, “Pioneers of European Integration 'From Below': Mobility and the Emergence of European Identity Among National and Foreign Citizens in the EU “. This would be an insult to all the respectable scientists who have contributed to this book, if critics attempt to have us believe that they had orientated their analyses to please the Commission. On the contrary, the analyses provided in this publication are scientifically rigorous, even the introductory chapter signed by sociologist Ettore Recchi ( University of Florence) and political scientist Adrian Favell ( University of Aarhus) do not hide their a priori support for European integration. Nevertheless, after all, could we criticise them over, “the notion of a border free continent being a utopia”, which was the case with the previous generation? This major development constitutes the “revolutionary principle” of free movement of persons, as well as the embryo of the first features of Europe that could one day see, “a form of post-national citizenship within a transnational political order”. Other despondent souls would undoubtedly object that, from a statistical point of view, European citizens who opt for mobility remain marginal, barely 4% of the population if we include, students, pensioners and expatriates. On this note Recchi and Favell retort, “the symbolic importance” of these European life choices supersede by far the number of individuals involved, so much so that the people they frequent in their host countries, “have included the hopes and dreams of the architects of the European integration process” to the extent that they have themselves become, “the human face of European integration and from whom we can learn what it means to be a European.

The authors of this book are engaged in finding out what kind of new Europe these individuals are building. Their research is based on the trajectories and experiences of 5,000 people living in Germany, Spain, France, the United Kingdom and Italy. Michael Brown and Camelia Arsene reveal, for example, a “preliminary typology” of those relocating in the European area and identify four major profiles: “the last of the traditional immigrants” moving north from the south in search of work; those catching the Eurostar, “a new class of very mobile young professionals and others using the opportunity of European mobility” and “early retired migrants” seeking a new life style. Oscar Santacreu, Emiliana Baldoni and Maria-Carmen Albert demonstrate that economic factors are not as decisive as “romantic migration” and sexuality - in the case of homosexuals- issues that are far from negligible in this connection. Ettore Recchi seeks to verify whether “spatial mobility” accompanies upward “social mobility” and his response appears to suggest that this is not the case. Other authors further clarify the after-effects of mobility in terms of national and European identities, European citizenship and media use. Ultimately, the major discovery is that, “the pioneers of European integration are also, perhaps, the pioneers of a better and more dynamic Europe for all”. Michel Theys

*** STEPHANE LECLERC (Editors): La libre circulation des personnes dans l'Union européenne. Etablissements Emile Bruylant (67 rue de la Régence, B-1000 Brussels. Tel: [phone] - fax: [phone] -Email: [e-mail] - Internet: http://www.bruylant.be ). “Rencontres européennes” series , No. 12. 2009, 170 pp., €38. ISBN 978-2-8027-2745-3.

Actes des Cinquièmes Rencontres Européennes de Caen (Acts from the Fifth European Meetings in Caen) were organised two years ago by the Research centre on Fundamental Rights and Legal Developments at the University of Caen Basse-Normandie. This book examines recent developments underpinning the founding principle of the free movement of persons - eight million citizens living in another member state that is not their home country and which, “represents the life force of European citizenship and reminds us that the human dimension is definitely at the heart of European construction”, as underlined by the former vice president of the European Commission, Jacques Barrot in his preface. Above all, he singles out the fact that legal experts are outlining the perspectives in light of the 2004 directive on the right of Union citizens and members of their families to move freely and reside freely as they so wish in the territory of member states. This is confirmed in the effective description provided by Professor Claude Blumann (University Panthéon-Assas) in his general conclusions illustrating, “the chrysalis of the economic agent is gradually growing out of the European citizens”. For all this, the contributions in this publication focus on the real people who benefit from this freedom, in addition to the real substance of the free movement of persons and the opportunity of living in another member state. Professor Blumann illustrates that we have not yet arrived at the end of history, on the contrary, the conditions are now in place for free movement to be promoted on the agenda as a, “fundamental right for human beings and a genuine human right”. This publication provides useful clarification but is essentially addressed to legal specialists.

(MT)

*** CHARLES-ETIENNE LAGASSE: Les institutions européennes après le traité de Lisbonne. Editions Erasme (2 place Baudouin 1er, B-5004 Namur. Tel: [phone] - fax: 212372 - Email: [e-mail] - Internet: http://www.groupeerasme.be ). 2009, 184 pp. ISBN 978-2-87438-083-9.

Because, “the duty of explaining Europe and bringing it to life among the public is more important than ever”, Charles-Etienne Lagasse has struck while the iron has been hot, piping hot, even: as a legal expert and teacher of legal studies (he teaches at Belgian and European institutions in Brussels-based high education colleges), this senior official in the French-speaking part of Belgium clearly presents, in this manual, the situation affecting the European Union in light of the Treaty barely in force since the 1 December. These pages are similar to a bunch of keys that unlock the process of understanding the European institutions and the context in which they have been involved since they first came into being. By shedding light on the main dynamics continuously at play, particularly the permanent tensions between the supranational and inter-governmental schools of thought, the author proves, quite strikingly, that the “institutional complexity is losing its aridity as the economic and political dynamics are revealed”. He also provides his readers to an extended clarification of the grammar and vocabulary used in the European institutional world and interprets them in simple and intelligent terms and subsequently and successfully puts forw ard his limpid ideas. He also locates the Union in a broader context of the other organisations active at a European level. In his conclusions, he illustrates the, “slippage in certain public opinion” and a tendency to turn inwards, which is translated into a, “mercantile, small shop-keeper approach from certain member states in their approach to the European budget” - ideas that should be taken with a fair bit of salt, in the context of the Greek saga. One of his reasons explaining his apprehension is down to the position adopted by the United Kingdom by both its leaders and people, which are becoming more than ever before, “permanent obstacles to deepening European construction” although it is, “only common and strengthened institutions that will enable citizens on the European continent to take their place in the new world taking shape”. This underpins the author's equally reliable and committed conviction, no matter what certain quarters may deign to say, that the “the question of institutional model”, is expected to become imperative - and, perhaps, quite soon - may return to the table, “because we cannot indefinitely prolong trench warfare between supporters of a vast market devoid of political goals and partisans of a form of federalism”. If this is not forthcoming, nothing will be able to “remotivate citizens”, their reconquest being one of the other major areas in which to build, in order that, as soon as possible, other bigger areas in which to build are to be explored too. (MT)

*** ANDREAS FISCHER-LESCANO, CHRISTIAN JOERGES, ARNDT WONKA (Editors): The German Constitutional Court's Lisbon Ruling: Legal and Political Science Perspectives. Zentrum für europaïsche rechtspolitik / Centre of European Law and Politics, Universität Bremen (Universitätsallee, GW 1, D- 28359 Bremen. Internet: http://www.zerp.eu ). "Zerp-Diskussionspapier series, No. 1. 2010, 91p. €8.

This publication is an extension of a university seminar held last September in Bremen. It includes legal experts and distinguished political scientists who dissect the verdict made by the German Constitutional Court on the Lisbon treaty. The case receives charges and counter charges, but most of the contributions are critical of the German judges, less inspired in this case than their Czech counterparts, according to several of the writers. Several contributions, nonetheless, highlight the fact that the European Court of Justice offered a rope to hang the Union with by way of several rulings (Viking, Laval, Rüffert), which constituted “declarations of war on regulated capitalism”. The German Supreme Court pointed out, perhaps, clumsily but also correctly, that the public social order was within the remit of States and could not be sacrificed on the altar of integrationist objectives. (MT)

*** STEFANIE MAYER: « Totes Unrecht ». Die « Beneš -Dekrete » - eine geschichtspolitische Debatte in Österreich. Peter Lang (1 Moostrasse, Postfach 350, CH-2542 Pieterlen, Switzerland. Tel: [phone] - fax: [phone] - Email: [e-mail] - Internet: http://www.peterlang.com ). "Politische Kulturforschung". 2009, 159 pp., €31.80 ISBN 978-3-631-58270-1.

The Beneš decrees were adopted by the Czechoslovak government in exile during the Second World War. Nonetheless, the term also reverts to the decrees promulgated at the end of the war and which aimed to expel the German-speaking population from the country. While the Czech Republic and Slovakia were negotiating their entry into the European Union, these decrees were the subject of public debates in Germany and Austria. The questions related to them are tackled in this book in a more overtly political way. In the first part of the book, Stefanie Mayer seeks to retrace the history of the decrees in question in an effort to provide the reader with the context of the debates discussed further on in the book. The second part of the book looks at and analyses the different political lines sought in the Beneš decrees, before presenting the debate, which is initially commented upon in a chronological manner before being presented in each of the different disciplines. The repercussions of these decrees and the debates they provoked form the subject of the last part of the book. (JD)

*** YANN BEVANT, EAMON MAHER, GRACE NEVILLE, EUGENE O'BRIEN (Editors): Issues of Globalisation and Secularisation in France and Ireland. Editions Peter Lang (1 Moosstrasse, CH-2542 Pieterlen. Tel: [phone] - fax: [phone] - Email: [e-mail] - Internet: http://www.peterlang.com ). "Studies in Franco-Irish Relations" series, No. 3. 2009,282 pp., €46.50. ISBN 978-3-631-59052-2.

This book examines a selection of papers presented at the 4th Franco-Irish Colloquy held at the University of Rennes 2 in 2008. The book provides a contribution to the debate opened in France with the centenary commemoration of the 1905 law separating the powers of the church and state in the context of the draft European Constitutional Treaty at the time. It is also an extension to the conference on secularism organised two years earlier at the European Parliament by members of the Party of European Socialists, which included François Hollande, the Secretary General of the French Socialist Party at the time, as well as Jean Glavany and Bernard Poignant - who created an opportunity for comparing relations between the church and state in the member states on the basis of a simple question: does a common European religious heritage exist? Because “French secularism” is not the general rule in other Union countries, the very concept is impossible to translate in all the languages concerned. In Ireland, Pol and and Greece, for example, religion is still part of the national identity, something unthinkable in France. Nonetheless, globalisation and a more individualistic way of life, orientated on the world of work has eroded the grip of the church in these countries and has created a greater opening up within the people of these countries. Paradoxically, the reverse has occurred in France: rather than having promoted greater openness, globalisation has provoked distrust, even contempt. Studies included in this book intend to examine and compare the different aspects of the experiences of these phenomena in Ireland and France, in an effort to enrich the debate with new perspectives. The publication contains contributions by university specialists from a variety of different areas, who initially seek to compare poets and fiction writers by identifying to what extent their religious or secular beliefs have influenced their work. The second part focuses on identifying changes affecting notions of secularism and belief in increasingly globalised societies. (NDu)