*** DAVID ENGELS: Le déclin. La crise de l'Union européenne et la chute de la République romaine - quelques analogies historiques. Editions du Toucan (25 rue Vézelay, F-75008 Paris. Email: contact@editionsdutoucan.fr - Internet: http://www.peterlang.com ). 2012, 379 pp. €20. ISBN 978-2-81000-524-6.
This book incontestably deserves a prize for originality from the perspective its author provides on Europe and how it has been built over the past 60 years. As Chair of Roman History at the Free University of Brussels, Professor David Engels seeks to show how the European Union has much to learn in order to understand itself and regenerate ties with its citizens, from Greco-Roman culture prevailing during the era of the late Roman Republic up until just before Caesar and the Empire began to assert itself. The author believes that if the European Union is currently experiencing a “serious crisis of legitimacy”, it is because the princes that have been providing it with direction have thrust it over the six decades preceding it, into an identity crisis resulting from a constant rejection of traditional values of the past and the “equally desperate and unfruitful attempt” to build a, “new collective European identity based on impersonal collectivist and ideals” in the realm of democracy, human rights, tolerance and free trade etc. David Engels asserts that, “Europe does not need to artificially construct a new identity in the way a recently founded commercial enterprise would do” but rather, understand and assume, “the territorial and cultural identity imposed on it by its historic traditions forged over centuries of constructive antagonism with other cultures from which it has emerged and which surround it”. Achieving good health will not come from the Kantian idea of scrapping everything from the past but rather, from a reconciliation with values that have had too long been lost or renounced.
By way of a comparative historical approach, Professor David Engels shows to what extent the identity crisis currently affecting the Union has a precedent in the times of the late Roman Republic and lessons can undoubtedly be drawn from this. This is because, “during the last few decades of the Roman Republic, similarly to during the 20th and 21st centuries in Europe, tendencies moved towards the opening up of citizenship and the notion of a society's identity to concepts that largely outstripped the initial framework”. This phenomenon abounded and these tendencies were very much interdependent and led in each case to these societies cutting themselves off from their citizens who become disorientated , with feelings of abandonment as if they were in a new and unknown world. These kinds of malaise and societal illness are analysed 2000 years on, on the basis of the very values included in the Eurobarometer survey, which enables the author to note that citizens are only able to classify the values proposed to them and which, according to the author, is a process that is, “completely representative of moderate (or directed?) democracy advocated by the Union”. In the first part of the book, he focuses on identity values with social connotations, from the transition between identity based on ethnicity and that based on cosmopolitan values, in addition to the effects of personal development linked to the evolution of goals and social life in the western world, as well as respect for life (family reproduction) gender and equal opportunities that have, “created a society that is radically different to that of our ancestors… with individual advantage placed above the social structure as a whole”. He also looks at the role of religion and culture in Europe, which he says is not tackled in the questionnaire but which is more revealing than we are led to believe in its “respect for other cultures” format. He then looks at the link between identity and political ideas: the importance given to individual freedoms that for the author suggests, “an increasingly important place being granted to the security of the citizen the disadvantage of freedom built on an awareness of order”; democracy in conjunction with other considerations, the responsibility of democratic representatives voted for by the electorate; the importance given to the rule of law in the European context, “the management of it increasingly sliding into the hands of technocrats”. The author finally looks at the Union as a political body in light of the importance given to peace and solidarity which, “is increasingly going beyond the initial federal model and subsequently appearing in an operational mode of functioning that could be described as imperial”.
The crisis currently being experienced in Greece and other southern European countries is proof of the pudding, explains David Engels, “the Union is perfectly capable of acting as an imperial body” because, “an empire, contrary to a federation, is structured according to the domination of one or several ethnic or civic groups over other groups that do not have the same rights”. Is the author mistaken when he suggests that in many respects, “ the Troika makes one think of the professional governors” that existed during the times of the Roman Empire? Judging by the evidence, few Greek citizens would be inclined to disagree. Many European citizens would also be likely to agree that, “national cartels are succeeding, by way of a variety of different means, to impose their own vision on other countries” and the vision emanating from Germany is presently the most decisive example of this phenomenon. Therefore, given that the EU28 chose not to pursue a federal Europe, “is the European Union actually on track for transforming itself into an imperial structure in full expansion and with flexible frontiers”. In the epilogue, the writer urges the citizen activist to take up the pen but does not exclude the fact that, “given the lack of esteem that modern democracy is suffering from today and the unprecedented economic and social crisis ever experienced since the 1920s”, modern day calls for new Caesars could begin to be made. The author explains that although Rome fell into the hands of a new imperial nobility, the elite today would now find its, “embryonic form in European bureaucracy and the curious mixture of meritocracy, technocracy and nepotism, subject to few forms of democratic control”. Those who may not exactly be enthralled by David Engels writing will at least be undoubtedly given a lot of food for thought and encouraged to think in a completely different way!
Michel Theys
*** GERARD DUSSOUY: Contre l'Europe de Bruxelles: fonder un Etat européen. Editions Tatamis (103 rue Albert Ier, F-41000 Blois. Tel: (33-9) 54302040 - Email: editions.tatamis@gmail.com - Internet: http://www.tatamis.fr ). 2013, 189 pp. €10. ISBN 978-2-917617-61-8.
This really is a book that sets the cat among the pigeons. It was written by Emeritis Professor of geopolitics at the Université Montesquieu de Bordeaux. The preface was written by Dominique Venner, a French intellectual and essayist from the far right who killed himself in 21 May last at Notre-Dame in Paris to protest against the decadence in France and Europe, which he claimed had been caused by immigration from Africa and Maghreb countries. Does the author of this book share all the convictions of Venner? Perhaps not, but there are intellectual proximities that cause concern, shared ideas that raise the alarm and ideological meetings that sow the seeds of doubt and raise a number of questions. This is indeed the case with this book, which is resolutely pro-European but what kind of Europe is he talking about? Certainly not, Dominique Venner is delighted to say in his posthumous preface, “the technocratic and globalised nightmare from Brussels”. No, Gérard Dussouy does not want a Europe that suffers from a “syndrome characteristic of civilisational cycles coming to an end” and which is particularly characterised by, “demographic collapse and migratory submersion, the ageing of elites and the disintegration of national cultures, social alienation and selfish individualism, threats to national identity… in the name of new beliefs, particularly Islam…”, etc. because he is not prepared to accept these death throes, as he perceives it, the author makes a heartfelt appeal for the emergence of a “European state that is supranational and federal but which does not encroach on identity” and addresses European leaders in the following terms, “by latching on to an outmoded dogma of national sovereignty and because it has been overtaken by a situation created by global power, they combine another syndrome with the Roman syndrome and one that affects us all”, the Byzantine syndrome, which although uniting everyone, leaves them powerless. The ideas he puts forward appear plausible from the picture he paints but there is also the problem, however, contained in the underlying ideological views that also witness the author calling for, “a union of the last remaining forces alive in the continent in a unity that should also encompass a Euro-Russian block because Russia is part of Europe and crucial to it”. The book is therefore cleverly argued but leaves a bitter aftertaste …
(MT)
*** ANTOINE VAUCHEZ, BRUNO DE WITTE (Editors): Lawyering Europe. European Law as a Transnational Social Field. Hart Publishing (16 C Worcester Place, Oxford, OX1 2JW. Tel: (44-1865) 517530 - fax: 510710 - Email: mail@hartpub.co.uk - Internet: http://www.hartpub.co.uk ). "Modern Studies in European Law" series, No. 37. 2013, 297 pp. £50. ISBN 978-1-84946-378-2
This book brings together contributions from eminent specialists in the academic world, as well as legal experts, political scientists and sociologists. It was written in an attempt to fill the void and attention deficit that has hitherto involved the role played by lawyers and other legal experts in laying the foundations of the European integration process and European law underpinning it. The book's authors seek to help the reader understand that European law is the result of social and political phenomena and the action taken by the European courts is but the final legal expression of this. To this end, they describe the roles of the great variety of actors who stand behind legal norms and decisions, which enables them to provide a more comprehensive idea of the way in which the European Union and its law evolve. Although the contributions span a wide spectrum of domains and periods of European integration, from the early days of European legal integration to the recent constitutional saga, they are all entirely connected in one way another and the political scientist Antoine Vauchez (CNRS and in the European Centre of Sociology and Political Science at l'Université Paris I - Sorbonne) and legal expert Bruno de Witte (University of Maastricht and the Robert Schuman Centre at the European University Institute of Florence) divide them into four major parts. The first focuses on the participants permanently involved in this process, namely, the judges of Luxembourg and the “insiders” to the European Human Rights Convention and Union institutions' legal services. In the second part, “Centres and Peripheries” considers the hybrid and complex structure of this legal field embedded as it is in both national and transnational dynamics. Under the heading “European elites and their legal credentials”, the institutions and professions outside the legal realm stricto sensu are analysed, with particular attention focusing on the developments observed involving commercial consultants. Four other contributions tackle the, “disputed role of law in the government of Europe”.
(MT)
*** Politique. Revue de débats. ASBL Politique (9 rue du Faucon, B-1000 Brussels. Tel: (32-2) 5386996 - Email: secretariat@politique.eu.org - Internet: http://politique.eu.org ). September/October 2013, No. 81, 84 pp €9. Subscription: €40.
In this issue of Politique, the current president of the French-speaking Belgian Socialist Party, Paul Magnette pays homage to the University lecturer and professor of political sciences, Eric Remacle, who recently passed away. Mr Remacle was his colleague at the Free University of Brussels and with whom he wrote the collective book, “A New European Model” more than 10 years ago. In it, they were somewhat pleased to point out that the inter-governmental method was growing more powerful and, “leading towards the development of new forms of cooperation that were more flexible and fluid than traditional Community mechanisms”, which helped to strengthen, “the intensity of European integration”. The Socialist Party president is now probably wringing his hands in despair in recognition that he and his fellow political scientists had not anticipated, “ the profound disintegration of the European objective that has been unveiling since the euro came on the scene”. The right have subsequently appropriated this institutional model to excessively ratchet up the pressure on regulatory and solidarity models and in an echo to the subseuqently disillusion that has ensued, a feature article in this issue has been dedicated to the subject of a possible, “return of the radical left” through the parties now more inclined to dream of the, “heyday of the insurrectional general strike” than defend the welfare state and of its services faced with the appetite of the financial world backed up by, “the power of an unelected bureaucracies”, suggesting that the alliances with which social democrats are “perpetually seeking accommodation” are appearing increasingly unstable. Professor Philippe Marlière (University College London) looks at the European countries where political groupings of this kind have taken place due to the crisis and the responses to it. He points out that these parties although still opposed to “the neoliberal version of Europe” never advocate any form of “total disengagement” from the European Union. More targeted contributions tackle case studies in Greece (Syriza), Italy, Portugal, Germany and, of course, Belgium. This issue also contains a lengthy but intellectually stimulating interview with the intellectual Gérard Mordillant, as well as a presentation of the concept of the basic income in all its aspects …
(MT)
*** CAROLINE SAUVAJOL-RIALLAND: Infobésité. Comprendre et maîtriser la déferlante d'informations. Vuibert (5 allée de la 2ème DB, F-75015 Paris. Internet: http://www.vuibert.fr ). 2013, 206 pp. €22. ISBN 978-2-311-01058-9.
As opposed to obesity, which has been recognised by the World Health Organisation since 2007 as a disease, information overload is not an illness. Nonetheless, this negative phenomenon can be affecting you without your knowledge… In this day and age who hasn't felt that they are sometimes living in a situation of information overload? There is nothing astonishing about that, as explained by Caroline Sauvajol-Rialland in this publication. The average manager today receives 10 times as much information as his counterpart would have been receiving 15 years ago and he or she themselves produce 10% more data every year. Moreover, as any good journalist could tell you, too much information kills information. Abundance is not always the friend of quality, quite on the contrary and this author hammers home in her conclusions the fact that, “the logic of over information results in under information or misinformation”. Having access to information without the necessary cognitive tools that enable us to understand that information and analyse it could, in fact, prove very dangerous. Could information as understood by certain people today be more of a source of risk and constraints than the actual creation of value for people and organisations? It is in an attempt to answer this question and others related to it that appear to have become a real challenge to society that this senior lecturer at the Political Science Department at the Catholic University Leuven, seeks to provide scientifically rigorous answers.
(MT)