*** RENAUD DEHOUSSE (Ed.): The 'Community Method'. Obstinate or Obsolete? Palgrave Macmillan (Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS, UK. Tel: (44-1256) 329242 - Fax: 328339 - Internet: http://www.palgrave.com ). Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics. 2011, 232 pp. ISBN 978-0-230-58077-0.
Professor of Politics and head of a European Studies Centre, Renaud Dehousse has gathered around him a fine team of researchers to verify whether what was for a long time the cornerstone of the European project, namely the Community Method, is now destined to become obsolete. This research is clearly relevant to the current times, where some Member States in particular seem repulsed by the idea of making use of the EU institutions, particularly the European Commission, giving themselves greater power and greater influence. The way the sovereign debt crisis is being managed is an illustration of this, with the Barroso Commission seemingly reduced to little more than a secretariat for an omnipotent European Council of Ministers, and therefore running the risk of seeming increasingly impotent and clumsy. The Community Method is obviously not in good health, being attacked by a number of Member State viruses, but is it destined for death? Perhaps not and the great merit of this book is the way it draws up a strictly scientific diagnosis moving beyond all the ideological subterfuges.
Why is qualified majority voting seen as crucial despite the number of votes recorded remaining so low? Why does the Commission so determinedly defend its right of initiative while publicly recognising at the same time that most of its proposals emanate from suggestions from the Member States, whether individually or collectively? Why does the EP, after years of struggle to establish its authority on legislative issues, rely so heavily on expertise and informal contact with civil servants of various ranks, rather than exercising political control over the various arms of the executive in the EU? The authors say these paradoxes make it necessary to examine in detail the role genuinely occupied by the Community Method in modern governance of the European club. Initially, Prof. Dehousse usefully explains the specific aspects of the Community Method, a mechanism dreamed up by Jean Monnet to reconcile and obviate tension among supranational (or federal) and intergovernmental (or confederal) approaches that have been at work since the start of the European construction venture. In the introductory chapter, he also explains why the first six founder states agreed to the Community Method, although it deprived them of some of their absolute sovereignty. He goes on to explore the reasons why the Community Method now seems to be in crisis. The innovative character of the book is the way the diagnosis is expressed in the light of how the various EU institutions interact, with other authors meticulously studying the validity of alternatives to the Community Method, whether 'supranational intergovernmentalism' as discussed by Jolyon Howorth against the backdrop of the foreign and security policy, or the 'Open Method of Coordination' studied by Jonathan Zeitlin, Philippe Pochet taking the opportunity to point out that hard law is important if one really wants to build a social Europe.
In general conclusions for the whole of the book, Renaud Dehousse notes that the pertinence of the Community Method remains intact, although the method has evolved as a result of the resistance that has been building up in the Member States since the Maastricht Treaty (in some countries more than others...) to its operational effectiveness, that was so dear to Monnet's heart. The principle of subsidiarity and the intergovernmental pillars invented to ensure cooperation could develop beyond the control of supranational bodies is a clear sign of this, but these arrangements have not really proved tremendously effective, which is why, for example, the High Representative for Foreign Policy is now sitting on a fence somewhere or other between the European Council and the European Commission, for the only way of getting over the structural weakness of intergovernmental cooperation was, diplomatically speaking, to incorporate elements inspired by the traditional ways of running things in the EU. In the same spirit, the way the crises of recent months have been managed is surely so impressive that political leaders in various countries will surely call for a new transfer of power to supranational institutions… The disillusion felt by many Europeans today tends to demonstrate, at least, that the the pertinence or obsolescence of the Community Method is far from settled and promises to generate heated political debate over coming months and years. In this perspective, no institution can afford to avoid a proper examination of its own conscience!
Michel Theys
*** FRANCOIS-XAVIER PRIOLLAUD, DAVID SIRITZKY: Que reste-t-il de l'influence française en Europe? La Documentation française (29 quai Voltaire, F-75007 Paris. Tel: (33-1) 40157010 - Fax: 40156783 - Internet: http://www.ladocumentationfrancaise.fr ). Réflexe Europe - Débats series. 2011, 184 pp, €9. ISBN 978-2-11-008534-4.
Already the authors of a blow-by-blow commentary on the Lisbon Treaty published by the same publishing house (see European Library 788, dated 23 July 2008), two top civil servants at the French national assembly look in this highly educational brochure at why France has lost influence in Europe. In an alert, incisive style and intermeshing of ideas, along with rigour and independence of ideas, they start by explaining the ambivalent relationship between Paris and Europe (the fact that in a recent television interview, President Sarkozy said that General de Gaulle was one of the fathers of Europe, but didn't even mention Jean Monnet, is highly revealing in this connection). They explain that in recent times, the persistence of a certain French go-it-alone-ism seems to be preferred by Paris, which favours dialogue among big countries, to the detriment of small and medium-sized countries and bodies like the European Commission and European Parliament. In the second part of the book, the authors analyse the causes of the relative, but undeniable, loss of influence of France on the European stage. They conclude by examining the objectives of the influence and resistance strategy pursued by France through its very timid defence of the French language in European institutions, its defence of public services and, finally, its fight to keep the European Parliament in Strasbourg. They point out that the latter issue has become such an area of tension that it damages French interests in many ways and they therefore suggest that without abandoning Strasbourg, France would benefit from suggesting to its partners a solution that takes account of both its own general interest and the general European interest. A courageous suggestion from French civil servants! There is also food for thought in the double call to reason made by former MEP Jean-Louis Bourlanges in the preface when he asks what good is it for him to have a huge influence in the European Union if, in Copenhagen, the EU is marginalised by the combined forced of China and the United States, forgetting to point out that the European Union is represented by twenty-seven different national delegations but not as a single body. The lecturer at the Institute for Political Studies explains that the wheels of history are still turning, and this also goes for Germany, which seems to be at the zenith of its power and influence, but is politically weakened by its hesitation about Greece.
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*** Fedechoses… pour le fédéralisme. Presse fédéraliste (Maison de l'Europe et des Européens, 13 rue de l'Arbre sec, F-69001 Lyon. Internet: http://www.pressefederaliste.eu ). 2011, No. 154, 36 pp, €8. Annual subscription: €30.
Unsurprisingly, this ever-pugnacious federalist publication attacks the intergovernmental impulses for dealing with the crisis that have been issued by Merkozy with a vengeance. Economist Bernard Barthalay says that Greece is the result of the failure of States, accusing them of acting against the interests of their own people by failing to deal with the matter, where the Community Method invented by Monnet should have been applied to the letter. He criticises the lack of uniform scrutiny by the European Parliament, making its election a masquerade of democracy. This view is confirmed by the editorialist, who says that the strictly national character of the so-called European elections makes MEPs highly dependent on national political parties and national political classes, which no doubt explains their lack of fight in the face of the Council of Ministers. The role of the Statement issued by the Spinelli Group in December 2011, however, shows that other people have different views…
(MT)
*** BEN PATTERSON: The Conservative Party and Europe. 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 ). 2011, 404 pp, £20, €25. ISBN 978-0-9564508-7-6.
This book expresses a split - that of a man who starts the preface by pointing out that when he became the MEP for Kent West in the very first elected European Parliament in 1979, he was the candidate for the Europe party because at that time, the British Conservative Party said in its Manifesto that the future of Great Britain would be best assured by being a member of a free, strong and democratic European Community. It said the same even shortly after the general elections of that year, commenting that much more could be done together could be done alone. This gives an idea of how much things have changed! After being elected MEP for two further terms of office, Ben Patterson is ideally placed to bear witness to this from the inside. No doubt some of his Tory friends will mistrust him because he is clearly on the pro-European fringes of the party, fringes led by Kenneth Clarke - author of introductory comments to the book - and Michael Heseltine, who ended up rebelling against the determined Europhobic activism of Margaret Thatcher, finally forcing his resignation. The credibility of the author's comments and analysis of the love-hate that his party (and more widely, his country, because the Labour Party suffered the same travails) has always had towards Europe can certainly not be questioned, particularly because the author has a scientific background. Talking about Churchill's heritage and reviewing the various stages in the complicated relationship between London and the European Union, moving from the years of Maggie Thatcher to those of David Cameron via the Single Market, the Bruges speech and its impact, management of the Single Currency, the 'battle for Maastricht,' and the Constitutional Treaty, Ben Patterson examines the various stages of a genuine stations of the cross. He shows how Europe has always been an area of disagreement in the UK and how when Macmillan lodged the request to join (which would be blocked by de Gaulle), the head of the Labour Party accused him of betraying a thousand years of history. Several years later, when Labour prime minister Harold Wilson made improvements to the accession request, it was Macmillan's successor, Sir Alec Douglas-Home, who said that Europe was a dead duck. Dislike has shifted back and forth, but has always existed. In this spirit, the huge merit of this book is that it states clearly that the Foreign Office only agreed to join the Common Market to make certain that the European integration process would fail! The problem is that sticking at something doggedly is one of the strong points of the British …
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*** STEFANO BARTOLINI: La mobilisation politique de la gauche européenne (1860-1980). Le clivage de classe. Editions de l'Université de Bruxelles (26 av. Paul Héger, B-1000 Bruxelles. Tel: (32-2) 6503799 - Fax: 6503794 -Internet: http://www.editions-universit é-bruxelles.be). email: editions@ulb.ac.be -UBlire - Fondamentaux series. 2012, 827 pp, €14. ISBN 978-2-8004-1477-5.
The translation of a book published in English in 2000, this is a crucial analysis of the history of socialism and working class politics in Western Europe from the end of the nineteenth to the end of the twentieth century. Now head of the Robert Schuman Advanced Research Centre at the Florence University Institute, political scientist Stefano Bartolini examines the stages of social conflict in the industrial revolution and how such conflict became political opposition, which then took on various organisational and ideological formats. This comparative research looks at changes in the thirteen countries of Western Europe over slightly longer than a century, not examining Spain, Portugal, Greece, Luxembourg and Iceland due to lack of reliable and coherent data. Particular attention is paid to communism, the author explaining the social background, organisations structures and political developments of left parties over a long period of time, making the book a precious reference in the field.
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*** SILVIO LEONARDI: L'Europe et le mouvement socialiste. Fédérop (Le Pont du Rôle, F-24680 Gardonne. Internet: http://www.federop.com ). "Textes fédéralistes" series. 1979, 254 pp.
The Fédérop publishing house has decided to refashion two series of publications created in 1975 by French federalist activists that later fell into obscurity, namely "Minorités Nationales" and "Textes Fédéralistes". This book by a former French Communist MP and MEP recounts a period that has now disappeared. He used to recommend the advent of a federal Citizen's Europe rather than what he termed a confederal Europe of countries and capital.
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