*** Politique. Revue de débats. ASBL Politique (9 rue du Faucon, B-1000 Bruxelles. Tel: (32-2) 5386996 - email: secretariat@politique.eu.org - Internet: http://politique.eu.org ). November/December 2012, No. 77 pp, €9. Annual subscription: €40.
This magazine is well-known in progressive, intellectual circles in Belgium, and the current issue casts a critical eye over a number of areas of European Union, or more precisely European Commission, action or lack of action. The Commission is urged to come up with a new programme of EU aid for deprived people in Europe, a fund for which the necessary legal requirements are met and which the crisis is rendering ever more essential. Who could deny this?! Trade union official Christophe Quintard, director of research at the Belgian trade union FGTB, criticises the incoherent European fiscal policy whose measures taken by the European Commission and European Summit since the beginning of the crisis have not been given a budget and which focus on the 'need to cut spending' and have the effect (or aim?) of endangering the European social model. He also criticises the lack of a fiscal convergence policy within the European Union which would get the 'production element Capital' to play its part. He says the draft common consolidated tax basis for company tax, which the Barroso Commission has been working on, will not lead to genuine progress unless it is accompanied by harmonised tax rates, but the 'Commission does not want to make progress' on this point, regrets the trade unionist, pointing out that there would certainly be agreement across-the-board for zero percent company tax across Europe, which would only weaken the European social model yet further and is therefore unacceptable.
The strongest attack is not the this one, however, but one by François Polet explaining how and why the Commission plays down the risks associated with agrifuel. A researcher at the Centre Tricontinental, a Belgian development and North-South NGO, he systematically explains that the 'saga of biofuel is symptomatic of the way green manufacturing has been taken over by the most gung-ho, destructive productivism.' He makes a strong accusation: 'Yet again, the European institutions will toe the line of financial lobbies to the detriment of sustainable development.' Is this going too far? Either way, when the author slams 'selective and focused' use of data upon which the political decisions to make massive use of biofuel are based, then there are certainly some very troubling facts, to put it mildly. For example, has the Commission taken enough account of the fact that 'changing the indirect use of soil' promotes a net rise in greenhouse gas emissions if the EU27 were to stick to the 10% of biofuel target set by the Euroepan Summit in December 2008? Not at all! Why not? Because, the author explains, 'data favourable to pursuit of 10% often comes from reports by DG Agriculture and DG Transport and Energy, have systematically been given preference, even though they are based on outrageously optimistic hypotheses, whereas more critical results are either ignored or arbitrarily discredited.' If the Commission has strayed away from the precautionary principle like this, it is because the DGs in question have worked hand-in-glove with certain economic interests - car manufacturers (particularly the German ones); representatives of farmers, particularly beet farmers; and above all the new industry of ethanol and biofuel-producing plants, which are worth a trifling €17 billion today. Against this backdrop, even if wanted to, the Commission would have great trouble going back on its strong political commitment to develop this sector. Hence, for DG Energy and DG Agriculture, the agrifuel industry is no longer a 'means to energy and climate ends' but has become an end in itself… And François Polet bitterly comments that despite the doubts expressed the DGs more sensitive to the overall environmental impact of renewables, the draft directive published in September has the sole merit of 'no longer making worse' a 'disastrous' policy as far as food security and the environment are concerned.
This issue of Politique also includes a special feature on downloading and the constant attempts to 'control and close off what technology has opened up.'
Michel Theys
*** BART VANHERCKE, RAMÓN PENA-CASAS, MATTHIEU PAILLET: Au-delà des postures: vers un budget européen social et durable. Observatoire Social Européen (13 rue Paul-Emile Janson, B-1050 Brussels. Tel: (32-2) 5371971 - Fax: 5392808 - email: info@ose.be - Internet: http://www.ose.be ). "OSE Opinion Paper" series, No. 12. 2012, 11 pp.
In this Opinion Paper, two members of the OSE and a student in environmental manaagement look at the upcoming EU Financial Perspectives which heads of state gave their attention to at the end of last week. They start by pointing out that thus far, the negotiations have been a 'perfect illustration of liberal intergovernmentalism,' in other words, the theory developed by Andrew Moravcsik whereby countries, particularly big countries, remain in control and try to maximise their own interests, and the EU institutions are little more than their agents. At the time these lines were written, nothing suggested that this European Summit would be any different… The trio of authors say the Commission, 'generally absent from the debate,' doesn't help, standing out for its 'lack of political vision,' and its 'vacillating legitimacy,' seeming 'ever more in the service of the biggest Member States.' Worse, the authors assume that MEPs will not dare challenge a deal watered down by the EU27, which seems a daring prediction at this stage. After showing that this budgetary 'every man for himself' has been the general rule since back in 1972, they explain that the social investment pact suggested by the Commission and backed by the European Parliament to balance the Euro Pact Plus could well be a 'new paradigm without any financial backing' because some Member States seem to have decided to slash social and regional spending insofar as this is within their remit. The authors also take on the desire of the European Commission to associate the crucial European fund to help the most vulnerable (to be set up in the future) with the obligation that potential beneficiaries meet job-seeking criteria. The desire of some countries to scrap the Globalisation Adjustment Fund is another strong signal which, if it wins the argument, would sent workers a message about the true social credibility of the EU while big business of the likes of Ford, Peugeot, Arcelor Mittal and so on shed workers willy-nilly. Nobody will be surprised that the authors conclude by pointing out that Europe is becoming 'ever more schizophrenic' with countries working flat out 'to saw off the branch on which social Europe is sitting.' The authors wonder how much longer people in Europe will put up with this kind of Europe…
(MT)
*** CORINE DEFRANCE, ULRICH PFEIL (Eds.): La construction d'un espace sci entifique commun? La France, la RFA et l'Europe après le « choc du Spoutnik ». 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 ). "L'Allemagne dans les relations internationales / Deutschland in den internationalen Beziehungen" series, No. 3. 2012, 321 pp, €38. ISBN 978-90-5201-857-7.
The Soviet Union's launch of Sputnik on 4 October 1957, at the height of the Cold War, rippled like an electric shock throughout the Western world and the launch four years later of the first man in space, Yuri Gagarin, the 'hero of humanity,' only added to this. These were Pyrrhic communist victories because they gave the United States the will to seize the opportunity and means to outdo them, which they did on 21 July 1969 when Neil Armstrong made his first steps on the moon. The Americans were not the only ones to react. After limiting themselves to setting up the European Council for Nuclear Research (CERN) in 1952, European countries understood that they had to cooperate to build a European scientific and academic area if they were not be removed from history. It is the 'prehistory' of this Europeanising process that is studied in this book, particularly from the angle of the behaviour of Germany and France. The first section sets the framework - Prof. Hans Manfred Bock of Kassel University draws up a balance sheet of relations between science and academia in France and Germany at the end of the 1950s, while his colleague Pierre Papon (Ecole Supérieure de Physique et Chimie Industrielles in Paris) describes the European research area as being 'between science and politics' in the 1960s until the mid-80s; researcher Veera Nisonen (European University Institute in Florence) examines the connections between bilateral Franco-German cooperation and the gradual expansion of action under the European Community's research policy; with Georges Saunier making very useful comments about the emergence of the first European Framework Programme for R&D of 1981 as seen from the French viewpoint. In the second section, seven other authors describe some of the players and areas of Franco-German and European scientific cooperation, be it at big research bodies like CNRS or the Max-Planck Gesellschaft or domains like nuclear physics and human and social sciences. The final section contains essays on projects, successes and failures from the European University Institute itself to Airbus via space cooperation. It all leads to the conclusion that there was nothing automatic about Franco-German scientific and technological cooperation and many mental hurdles and other problems had to be overcome at the beginning. Alain Beltran, research director at CNRS even draws the conclusion that the success stories 'were usually more multilateral than bilateral.'
(PBo)
*** HANS-WOLFGANG PLATZER, TORSTEN MÜLLER (Eds.): Global and European Trade Union Federations. A Handbook and Analysis of Transnational Trade Union Organizations and Policies. Peter Lang (1 Moosstrasse, Postfach 350, CH-2542 Pieterlen. Tel: (41-32) 3761717 - Fax: 3761727 - email: info@peterlang.com - Internet: http://www.peterlang.com ). "Trade Unions / Past, Present and Future" series, No. 14. 2012, 915 pp, €82-30. ISBN 978-3-0343-0744-4.
An updated English translation of a book initially published in German, this publication argues that 'advancing political and economic internationalization and Europeanization constitute significant new determinants for trade union strategy and activity in that they both 'subvert' and 'overtake' national arenas.' It therefore behoves trade union organisations to develop coherent strategies at these varying levels. Both authors are active at the German applied science university in Fulda, where they are members of the European and Global Industrial Relations research group. Hans-Wolfgang Platzer and Torsten Müller examine in this book how Global Union Federations and European Industry Federations have changed since the early 1990s. They look at whether there has been a transformation in the functional profiles of global and European trade unions over this period. After setting the political and historical backdrop, the authors focus on the branch or sector aspect of trade union organisations, first describing the profiles and structural developments of transnational trade union federations, be they European or global (like the International Metalworkers' Federation and the international transport workers' organisation or even the International Federation of Journalists). Transnational players and their work are examined scientifically for the major industry and service sectors. In the first section, the authors compare and contrast the organisation and strategy of transnational trade union groups, paying particular attention to how European organisations take part in the integration process through sectoral social dialogue, transnational collective bargaining coordination and European Works Councils. A reference book for this domain.
(PBo)
*** FONS COOMANS, ROLF KÜNNEMANN (Eds.): Cases and Concepts on Extraterritorial Obligations in the Area of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Intersentia Publishing (31 Groenstraat, B-2640 Mortsel. Tel: (32-3) 6801550 - Fax: 6587121 - email: mail@intersentia.be - Internet: http://www.intersentia.be ). "Maastricht Series in Human Rights," No. 14. 2012, 302 pp, €65, £62, $91. ISBN 978-94-000-0046-9.
As United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food Olivier De Schutter, lecturer at the Université Catholique de Louvain and College of Europe in Bruges, Belgium, points out in the preface, 'Economic globalization results in a mismatch between the scope of influence of States and the way the scope of their legal responsibility is defined.' The case studies in this book, arising from research over more than ten years, clearly demonstrate this, showing how and to what extent extra-territorial obligations of countries can be wriggled around. The twenty-three case studies cover trade and investment (such as the export of chicken from the EU with aid from the Common Agricultural Policy, which has caused huge problems for chicken farmers in Ghana), environmental destruction and climate change, international development and social policy, intergovernmental organisations and, finally, multinational companies and military conflict. Each case is set against the backdrop of the Maastricht Principles (published in an annex) drawn up by experts last year in order to set matters straight.
(PBo)
*** The next European Library, issue 985, will be dated Tuesday 8 January 2013.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all our readers in the meantime.