*** PHILIPPE HERZOG: Une tâche infinie. Fragments d'un projet politique européen. Éditions du Rocher/ Desclée de Brouwer (28 rue du Comte-Félix-Gastaldi, 98000 Monaco. Tel: (33-1) 40465407 - Internet: http://www.editionsdurocher.fr ). 2010, 350 pp, €20. ISBN 978-2-268-07006-3.
This political and philosophical book could easily be a testament because, in André Chouraqui's words, 'it transmits everything that at present, I would like to leave to humanity.' The fine tome, however, the fruit of reflection that has long been honed and subject to revisions and re-thinking, should rather be seen as an invitation to carefully thought-out rebellion and reasonable action to build a better world from the stepping stone of the European Union. The fact that Philippe Herzog wants to build a better world will be evident to anyone aware of his life hisstory. He was a young economist when he joined the Community Party, 'jumping in before I could swim,' he explains, often having to swim against the stream to such an extent that journalist Jean Boissonnat wondered whether he was 'the French Berlinguer'. Rejecting dogmatism of any kind, he then quite naturally moved closer to 'friends of the new left, like Michel Rocard and Jacques Delors, who paid attention to intellectual rigour and social mobilisation,' a movement that has lost ground to the Socialist Party, regrets the man who recommended that Martine Aubrey should not make the move to a 35-hour working week. He was then active as a 'free particle' as a Communist-labelled MEP from 1989 to 2004; as Founder-President of the 'Confrontations Europe' association that enabled him to 'get out of the Communist autarchy,' giving him 'a new, more extended community for dialogue'; and when 'Gaullist' Michel Barnier, European Commissioner for Services and the Single Market, invited him to become his special advisor, Herzog decided that he would only work for what he 'believes to be in the public interest' and did not hesitate because having now become a 'Saint Simonist, a liberal socialist,' he believes that 'the future of Europe' lies in the reconciling of liberalism and socialism.
It is no doubt necessary for Michel Barnier to be a true heir to Gaullism (apart from when it comes to Europe, fortunately…) in order for him not choke when he reads some of Philippe Herzog's ideas about politics and economics set out in this book. In his own way, the author is much closer in spirit to the founder of the Fifth Republic in France than some who openly claim to his follow de Gaulle's ideas, Herzog arguing that the 'monopoly of political parties must be demolished,' accusing the monopoly of 'producing an oligarchy of life-time professions, fragmentation and interminable, parochial bickering,' describing this microcosm as no longer 'capable of generating a project or a national strategy that is a fortiori European'. Would the Commissioner agree, for example, when Herzog suggests that defeating the 'sclerosis' affecting Western democracies by replacing it with 'a participatory democracy,' in other words, a democratic system where the citizen 'takes part in deciding on choices and exercising management'? Above all, would the Commissioner agree when Herzog challenges 'the monopoly of representative government' at European level, and states: 'One should not delegate all responsibility to professional politicians for they are enclosed within the enclaves of national institutions; one should try and form a politically active European society, confident in its intentions'? The answer is far from certain, although Philippe Herzog probably reassures him when he adds that this will be the 'political and cultural work of one or more generations.'
It comes as little surprise that the diagnosis and prescriptions issued by Philippe Herzog on the economic front are just as caustic. It comes as little surprise that he calls for the initial model upon which the grand market was built to be surpassed because it is a fact that it only 'aimed at the interests of consumers and workers couldn't find their place in it.' It comes as little surprise that he calls for 'encouragement for rehabilitation of public goods rather than consumption' and recommends 'a big European market encouraging' the development of services of general economic interest 'rather than simply tolerating them,' which would mean that the big European market would become 'by this means, a true area of community life and living together'. It comes as little surprise that this free-thinker refuses to attack competition policy for not being able to 'remedy the lack of industrial policies,' but argues that industrial policies should return to the agenda, 'its doctrine must change to be in their service' and thus contribute to transforming the 'big internal market into a base camps for European companies in the ascent of globalisation'. It comes as little surprise that the author makes an eloquent plea for the immediate launch of a 'European New Deal to get out of the crisis,' a 'new historic compromise' between 'reformers of whatever ilk, whether leftist democrats or independent rightists,' and therefore also between Member States, which have to understand 'that without European solidarity, European countries will sink together.' The author says that this urgently calls for 'unprecedented solidarity' within the European Union, along with all that that involves in terms of the EU budget and resources to be available in order to successfully defend the single currency. It comes as little surprise that these are all powerful messages that will be distinctly unpleasant to the ears of David Cameron, or even Merkel, Sarkozy and others. But then, surely they are the first ones to remain within the enclaves of their national institutions?
Michel Theys
*** GRAHAM WATSON: Building a Liberal Europe: the ALDE Project. John Harper Publishing (27 Palace Gates Road, London N22 7BW, UK. Tel: (44-20) 88814774 - email: jhpublish@aol.com - Internet: http://www.johnharperpublishing.co.uk ). 2010, 260 pp, €25. ISBN 978-0-9564508-1-4.
Graham Watson is slowly becoming a veteran at the European Parliament, where he was first elected back in 1994. In this book, he relates the story of his political life that has coincided with three different terms of the European Parliament thus far (he has just entered his fourth term of office, but does not discuss that in this book) and no fewer than five major revisions of the European treaties. The author naturally arranges the book around these terms of office but does not restrict himself to this: after briefly explaining the origins of the first European Parliament elected by universal suffrage (in 1979), he describes the EP of 1994-1999 and the implementation of the Maastricht Treaty and negotiation of the Amsterdam Treaty, followed by the EP elected in 1999. He breaks off at 15 January 2002, when Pat Cox became the President of the EP and Watson the chair of the Liberal Group of the time. He was able to exert his influence at this time as head of the political group that he rightly focusses upon because it was under his leadership that the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe was born, which gave the group a greater number of MEPs and greater variations of political colour. Graham Watson had the great and legitimate desire to stand as a candidate for president of the European Parliament in the term that opened in 2009 but dropped his plans in the light of the balance of forces that emerged in those European elections rather than having to beg the support of extremists and/or Eurosceptics. The nobility of a man of strong convictions is seen in his refusal.
(MT)
*** YVES DENECHERE, MARIE-BENEDICTE VINCENT (Eds.): Vivre et construire l'Europe à l'échelle territoriale de 1945 à nos jours. Presses Interuniversitaires Européennes / Peter Lang (1 av. Maurice, B-1050 Brussels. Tel: (41-32) 3761717 - Fax: 3761727 - email: pie@peterlang.com - Internet: http://www.peterlang.com ). "Euroclio" series, No. 53. 2010, 308 pp, €36-50. ISBN 978-90-5201-595-8.
How have European relations 'on the ground' operated in European's ownership of a European awareness? This was the broad theme of a conference in March 2009 at the 'Maison des Sciences Humaines' of Angers University in France, reported upon in this book in its socio-cultural, economic and practical dimensions, combining it with local and regional history with the aim of coming closer to players in the field to examine the tangible reality of their ideas about Europe. The first section of the book is devoted to the twinning of local communities in Europe, clearly symbolic of initiatives on the ground aiming to draw European local communities closer together. The second batch of essays looks more specifically at local actors that have sparked exchanges among local communities and civil society in Europe, like the Romanian Villages Operation in and around 1989. The third section of essays looks at the mixing of regional identities and the European identity through the case study of Alsace and Germany, the Spanish autonomous communities and Euro regions and other forms of cross-border cooperation. The fourth and final section explores cooperation of different types between local communities ait EU level, from the first meeting of European capitals, for integrated territorial projects in the light of Campania through initiates like the Conference of Peripheral Maritime Regions of Europe. Summing up, Prof. Bossuat of Cergy-Pontoise University in France observes that the regions have favoured forms of representation of European unity and the Commission has given way to the temptation to take advantage of regional moves for political ends. Prof. Bossuat, a historian, points out that the Commission has not fully succeeded in this: 'History shows that just like circles of national or European power, regions are areas for developing a European public arena, and a European perception of the challenges of our times without always referring back to directives from Brussels. The regions are full players in the challenges of modernity but that does not make them a territorialisation of an EU utopia.'
(MT)
*** PHILIP CASSIER: Der andere Weg. Deutschland und der Westen in den Westdeutschen Debatten 1945-1960. Peter Lang (1 Moosstrasse, Postfach 350, CH-2542 Pieterlen. Tel: (41-32) 3761717 - Fax: 3761727 - email: info@peterlang.com - Internet: http://www.peterlang.com ). 2010, 373 pp, €55-90.
ISBN 978-3-631-59476-6.
The history of Europe in the twentieth century basically coincides with the history of Germany, which twice turned the century upside-down. The two World Wars caused Europe its greatest tragedies and also gave rise to its current form. Aware of the role it played and the atrocity of its actions, Germany, particularly West Germany, did some intense navel-gazing after the Second World War, focussing on German society. It was forced to re-examine all its values in order to join the rest of the Western world which agreed in the post-war years to admit Germany, not without some misgivings, into the fold. This introspection was largely carried out by German intellectuals, launched by individuals like Thomas Mann and Ernst Troeltsch.
This book makes a pretty comprehensive analysis of German thought in the 1940's and 1950's about the country's history and its return to the Western fold. The book is arranged chronologically, with the author starting by setting the theoretical backdrop and methodology used in the analysis. He then examines problems with the perception of Western Europe in German history and other social sciences and in the minds of free intellectuals in the years before 1945. The third section looks at 1945-1949, a period in which many intellectuals examined the subject of the 'German catastrophe'. This topic is addressed, of course, but the main issue in this section of the book is guilt and 'Revision'. The key question of the collective collapse of German society is addressed by experts in various fields like psychiatrist Karl Jaspers, economist Wilhelm Röpke and lawyer Hans Peters. The role of the Catholic religion is discussed in this chapter and the role of history as an element of power. Finally, the question of the West in philosophical and historical thought after 1945 is also discussed looking, for example, at its role as setting an example of civilisation for post-war German intellectuals. The final chapter looks at German thought in the 1950's, with the author reviewing criticism of civilisation and noting above all German reflection on the country's future in terms of Communism or the West. The concept of modernism and moving to a new future, Übergangs zur Neuzeit, are also discussed
(JD)
*** GERHARD GÖHLER, CORNELIA SCHMALZ-JACOBSEN, CHRISTIAN WALTHER (Eds.): Apropos Wahl-Kampf. Politik und Medien im Superwahljahr 2009. Peter Lang (see above). 2009, 146 pp, €15-70. ISBN 978-3-631-58807-9.
There were elections in Germany at four different levels of the electoral system in 2009 - federal, regional, local and European. It was therefore a good year for journalists and political analysts to observe the different politicians at their hustings and examine their communication with the public. In Germany, as elsewhere, political messages have changed form in recent years due to medical developments, the internet and Twitter. Communications have become more commonplace and much faster and are now a crucial instrument for any election, as was illustrated by Obama, the first US president to be elected with intensive use of the internet, some commentators even saying it was the internet that won him the election. Even if the internet is now required, traditional media, led by television, are still important means of communication, as shown in this book with varied content covering a wide academic spectrum because it includes alongside purely political aspects, communications and linguistics, for example. Twelve writers have provided essays, some of them traditional analyses (historical analysis, comparing the US and the German elections and political analysis of the elections and of democracy) while others are more innovative and focus on the internet revolution, social networking and the EU dimension. (JD)