*** DOMINIQUE BERLIN: Politique fiscale. Volumes I et II. Editions de l'Université de Bruxelles (26 av. Paul Héger, CP 163, B-1000 Brussels. Tel: (32-2) 6503799 - Fax: 6503794 - email: editions@admin.ulb.ac.be - Internet: http://www.editions-universite-bruxelles.be ). "Commentaire J. Mégret" series. 2012, 642 and 486 pp, €75 and €55. ISBN 978-2-8004-1524-6 and 978-2-8004-1526-0.
How is it possible to devote more than a thousand tightly-packed pages (along with abundant footnotes and quotations) to a European policy that doesn't even exist? The question is perfectly legitimate because taxation is never mentioned in any of the policies or aims of the European Community or the European Union or in the resources at their disposal for achieving their aims. And yet, the getting on for twelve hundred pages in this book are not the mutterings of a scientist gone mad, but lead readers into highly tangible legal alleyways because taxation is in fact omnipresent in the European construction process. How come? Because taxation is 'unchallengeable considered as a resource at the service of the more general aim of economic integration.'
The writers of the various European treaties were clearly very careful to avoid stating that harmonisation of national taxation was an end in itself, but they did recognise that tax policies, as part of economic policy, should be subject to coordination measures and that taxation was therefore a 'resource which must be valued in terms of its contribution to economic integration.'
These two hefty tomes see Prof. Berlin (European College of Paris, Université Paris Panthéon-Assas) answering with a resounding and categorical 'no' the question of whether it is illicit to believe that the European Union could have a taxation policy. He voluntarily admits, and proves his argument, that this wouldn't be a real policy like the Common Agricultural Policy as it would largely depend on the decisions made by the sovereign Member States, but he demonstrates convincingly with a well argued case that the European influence on taxation is growing stronger, if only to ensure that tax competition does not damage the Single Market. The demonstration is based on a study of the two main objectives of tax policy sui generis.
The first section of the book examines tax policy seen as 'accompanying the creation of a Single Market,' which leads the author to examine in turn the commitment to fiscal neutrality for inter-EU trade, the choice of indirect taxation 'that is as neutral as possible,' by the introduction of a common VAT system, and the approximation of duty on spirits and cigarettes, fuel and the like. The second volume is wholly devoted to introduction of taxation that intermeshes with the Single Market, which leads Prof. Berlin to explain 'the dark side of fiscal competition' and the various attempts to get rid of the tax supermarket. Knowledgeable investigations that enable him to demonstrate, for example, that the European Union's fiscal policy owes as much to case law as to the legislator, with European judges being omnipresent in application of tax legislation and identifying the bare bones of what could become the content of future tax laws.
At the end of this remarkable work, Dominique Berlin comments that once again, a crisis may prove a catalyst for an expanded Europe: 'the economic and financial crisis that the European Union is undergoing (…) sheds light on shortcomings and past areas of deadlock, particularly in terms of taxation,' making the very lucid point that 'coordination of national budget policies, monitoring national pubic deficits' and the struggling 'introduction of greater financial solidarity are paradoxically progress to be laid at the feet of the sovereign debt issue.'
Why should Europe always have to touch rock bottom before the princes of the nations that govern Europe reluctantly decide, against the grain, to transcend national sovereignties of the past? Eurosceptics would no doubt answer that the areas of progress ripped out with forceps amount above all to 'dictatorship of the markets and the resigning of national sovereignty.' Surely it is rather, as Prof. Dominque Berlin suggests, a very tardy 'attempt by politicians to get control over the economy?' And who could deny that that is something that national states owe their citizens?
Michel Theys
*** TINNE HEREMANS: Professional Services in the EU Internal Market. Quality Regulation and Self-Regulation. Hart Publishing (16C Worcester Place, Oxford, OX1 2JW, UK. Tel: (44-1865) 517530 - Fax: 510710 - email: mail@hartpub.co.uk - Internet: http://www.hartpub.co.uk ). Modern Studies in European Law, No. 28. 2012, 366 pp, £75. ISBN 978-1-84946-240-2.
Following on from a doctoral thesis under the aegis of Prof. Koen Lenaerts (who is a judge at the European Court of Justice) at the Catholic University of Leuven (KUL) in Belgium, this book looks at a specific, not to mention peculiar, problem facing professional services in the Single Market. The initial question that Tinne Heremans answers is 'how an optimal provision of professional services in the Internal Market can be assured.' Wider legal questions are also addressed, however, such as the need for regulations to be passed to ensure high-quality services and protect consumers where possible; and the mushrooming of codes of practice in this domain and their strengths and weaknesses. Tinne Heremans, who is now an assistant to MEP Marianne Thyssen while still doing research at KUL's Institute for European Law, examines whether the traditionally price competition-focused competition law analysis leaves sufficient room for quality considerations. Likewise, she examines the extent to which the free circulation of competition law jurisprudence is still able to ensure Member States can monitor sufficiently high quality professional services supplied in their country. (PBo)
*** Confrontations Europe (227, bld. Saint-Germain, F-75007 Paris. Tel: (33-1) 43173283 - Fax: 45561886 - email: confrontations@wanadoo.fr - Internet: http://www.confrontations.org ). 2012, Special issue, Supplement to issue 98, April and June 2012, 72 pp, €7.
Published to mark the twentieth anniversary of 'Confrontations Europe,' an association created by Philippe Herzog, but also, more importantly, to examine the serious crisis threatening the whole of Europe, starting with the eurozone, this special issue, wisely translated into English and published with the French followed immediately by the English, includes a strong case by the former French MEP (currently an advisor to Commissioner Barnier) for a European industrial strategy, a domain abandoned by the European institutions and left to the Member States, which have therefore now become rivals on the bigger marketplace. Laid out in the form of twenty-five suggestions, he explains how it would be possible to federate Europeans around an industrial strategy, describing six pillars that could underlie it. For example, he firstly calls for a voluntary uniting of countries in the eurozone and beyond in a multinational pact for industrial cooperation and development; with another idea put forward being that the engine of growth can no longer be credit-fuelled consumption, but rather 'investment to renew public goods, in other words human, societal and natural capital.' An urgent must-read! (MT)
*** JEAN-FRANCOIS ECK, PIERRE TILLY (Eds.): Innovations et transferts de technologie en Europe du Nord-Ouest aux XIXe et XXe siècles. Presses Interuniversitaires Européennes / Peter Lang (1, av. Maurice, B-1050 Brussels. Tel: (41-32) 3761717 - Fax: 3761727 - email: info@peterlang.com - Internet: http://www.peterlang.com ). Euroclio series, No. 60. 2011, 292 pp, €35-50. ISBN 978-90-5201-764-8.
This book contains the proceedings of a conference at Lille University in France two years ago, where historians shed light on the players, pathways and processes of innovation and technology transfer in north-west Europe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, focussing on the nineteenth. A wide angle is taken because rather than simply examining innovations in products and manufacturing processes, the authors also look at novelties in the domains of organisation and marketing. In the same spirit, key issues like professional training and legal protection of innovation are addressed in the light of case studies from a geographical area extending from the North Sea to the Ruhr district in Germany (leading regions in the Industrial Revolution), from the Nord-Pas-de-Calais in France to the Ruhr via Lorraine, Luxembourg and Saarland. It emerges from the research that both large and smaller companies have been able to develop genuine strategies arising from and surrounding innovation that occasionally leads to complex technology transfers. (MT)
*** FRANCESCA FAURI, PAOLO TEDESCHI (Eds.): Novel Outlooks on the Marshall Plan. American Aid and European Re-Industrialization. Presses Interuniversitaires Européennes / Peter Lang (see above). Euroclio series, No. 59. 2011, 200 pp, €30.50. ISBN 978-90-5201-763-1.
To date, the impact of the Marshall Plan has mostly been viewed from the macroeconomic viewpoint, but the historians writing in this book consider the impact on the ground in terms of how the United States' aid was used by European - and US - companies. At the end of often painstaking searching in the archives, the authors show that while the Marshall Plan was obviously did not give rise to an industrial miracle in countries like Ireland or Southern Italy, it did make a strong contribution elsewhere to industrial renewal and thereby to the raising of workers' living standards, not to mention the way it facilitated the introduction of modern technology, such as the very first US computer that came onto the market in Italy. (PBo)
*** AALT WILLEM HERINGA, BRAM AKKERMANS (Eds.): Educating European Lawyers. Intersentia (31, Groenstraat, B-2640 Mortsel. Tel: (32-3) 6801550 - Fax: 6587121 - email: mail@intersentia.be - Internet: http://www.intersentia.com ). 'Ius Commune Europaeum' series, No. 98. 2011, 263 pp, €54. ISBN 978-1-78068-018-7.
Law training is usually a national affair carried out in the language or languages of the member State, but some academic structures are starting to develop a legal education programme that is fully European and shakes off national language constraints, Maastricht European Law School, for example, in the Netherlands, which teaches both European and international law in the English language. This collection of essays sheds light on the reasons for the advent of legal education applicable for the entire European Union, the way the Maastricht programme is designed, its strengths and weaknesses and obstacles encountered along the way. The authors aim to encourage debate among lawyers within the European Union to ensure a better programme arises from the debate. Needless to say, although very interesting and legitimate because European law is gaining in importance and English is currently the lingua franca in the business world and among the elite, the imitative will raise certain questions among people who remember that the officially, the EU is supposed to respect diversity of all types, including language… (MT)
*** ROSALIND M. O. PRITCHARD: Neoliberal Developments in Higher Education. The United Kingdom and Germany . Peter Lang (1 Moosstrasse, Postfach 350, CH-2542 Pieterlen. Tel: (41-32) 3761717 - Fax: 3761727 - email: info@peterlang.com - Internet: http://www.peterlang.com ). 2011, 329 pp, €48-90. ISBN 978-3-0343-0715-4.
A collection of articles published in various places from 1992 to 2006 and two more recent unpublished articles, this book is a scientifically argued J'accuse by an emeritus lecturer at Ulster University who, over two decades, has overturned the values that were the historic foundations of university education. Focussing on experience in Germany and the UK, the author explains the roots and impact of the emergence of private universities, competition for funding in the form of calls for tender and the priory given to practical know-how rather than theoretical teaching, also examining how all this has impacted on the mindsets of students and staff. In the same spirit, Rosalind M. O. Pritchard is particularly critical of how the Barcelona Process has become a bedfellow of 'academic capitalism,' which is clearly the 'epitome of neoliberalism' in her view. A politically committed book providing food for thought… (PBo)
*** WERNER WIATER, DORIS MANSCHEKE (Eds.): Tolerance and Education in Multicultural Societies. Peter Lang (see above). 2011, 141 pp, €31-80. ISBN 978-3-631-60716-9.
Robustly scientific and therefore aimed at specialists and teachers at the chalkface of multicultural education, this book examines various tangible dimensions of the promotion of tolerance via culture and education in multicultural societies, along with tensions and conflict that can arise. Through examples of problems and good practices from the four corners of Europe, the pedagogue authors demonstrate that tolerance is a daily battle and education, itself affected by the various cultures present, is a field of permanent tensions, which can give rise to the best but, if one is not careful, it can also generate the not so good. (PBo)