*** DAVID NATALI, BART VANHERCKE (Editor): Bilan social de l'Union européenne 2012. Quatorzième rapport annuel. Institut syndical européen (5 Bld du Roi Albert II, B-1210 Brussels. Tel: (32-2) 2240470 - fax: 2240502 - Email: etui@etui.org - Internet: http://www.etui.org ). 2013, 312 pp. ISBN 978-2-87452-289-5.
Drawn up, as usual, by the European Social Observatory, at the request of the European Trade Union Institute and the European Trade Union Confederation, the 2012 edition of the Social Developments Report is not at all pessimistic, despite the European Union still being stuck in an existential crisis that is potentially fatal in several areas. Nonetheless, the authors of this report this year have preferred to explore a variety of different ways for improving the socio-economic situation in the area of future growth that is more dynamic and inclusive, rather than focusing exclusively on the bitterness and frustration that has led to the promotion of austerity at all costs.
The document is divided into two. The first part looks at the main developments regarding governance of the Union in the socio-economic field. Paul De Grauwe analyses the good and bad areas of the financial and macro-economic strategy carried out by the Union and its member states. He subsequently purports that the European authorities and particularly the Central Bank, “saved the euro”. The glad tidings of 2012-2013 are indeed fact that the euro zone is still alive and kicking! Nevertheless, De Grauwe, from Belgium and who teaches at the London School of Economics' European Institute, points out that they have not been able to tackle the persisting asymmetric relationship between the rich north of Europe and the poor south. The political storm, however, is blowing over the whole of the euro zone and the feeling of impending danger is now very developed in the north of Europe and it appears to be spurning the crucial solidarity required to prevent the crash assuming a dimension that is further twisted and self-destructive. This economist argues that European citizens in northern Europe should be informed of the fact that the crisis is not just the result of southern European countries' irresponsibility in accumulating significant external debt. He explains that it also stems from the fact that during the boom years, Northern Europe provided surplus banking credit to the south without really thinking about it and that every imprudent borrower in the south found a lender that was just as imprudent in the north! Two other contributions in this first part of the report focus on the increasing challenge facing the Union's legitimacy and its initiatives taken that so very timidly attempt to go beyond questions of GDP.
In the second part of the publication a number of different authors to analyse, from different perspectives, the impact of the crisis on social policies. Therefore, Bart Vanhercke examines the possibility that all the potential contained within the EUROPE 2020 strategy may simply remain a dead letter due to the lack of sufficient financial resources. Ramón Pena-Casas analyses the European Employment Strategy “or what remains of it”, explain the authors of the report, in the context of the Union's economic and social governance. There are also other contributions on the future of the respective education systems and the “dramatic” state of industrial relations and European countries in the context of collective bargaining and fixed incomes, as well as the recent decisions made by the European Court of Justice regarding working time, flexicurity, the fight against discrimination and equal treatment of men and women.
In “future prospects”, David Natali reaches a number of conclusions on the basis of these studies and confirms that the political tension now seriously threatening the Union can be summed up as a “visible paradox” given the, “urgent need for greater integration and the apparent impossibility of achieving this” in addition to the, “ return to inter-governmentalism, which has sent both the Commission and Parliament into touch”. Mr Natali is both a lecturer at the University of Bologna-Forli and director of research at the European Social Observatory. He argues that national decision-makers are endorsed by elections but increasingly constrained by supra national guidelines, “whilst supranational leaders who take decisions that obviously concern the future of European citizens, lack any democratic support (or at the most, benefit from indirect and weak support). It is obvious that no democracy can be pleased with the situation, which is why David Natali proposes that European citizens are allowed to elect the president of the Commission. He argues that this could ultimately increase Europe's democratic legitimacy and that the European Parliament should have the legislative right of initiative and that national parliaments are involved more, particularly in respect of exerting more accountability on the European Council. These proposals are undoubtedly sensible ones but common sense is not enough when command is controlled in Berlin or Paris or any other national capital city.
Michel Theys
*** BERNADETTE CLASQUIN, BERNARD FRIOT (Editors): The Wage under Attack. Employment Policies in Europe. 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 “Work & Society” series No. 75. 2013, 293 pp. €47.10. ISBN 978-2-87574-029-8.
What if the crisis the European Union has been suffering from for the past six years were nothing but a massive smokescreen? Is it not just pursuing an ideological process of reform begun thirty years ago and which has led to the economic downturn? And hasn't it all simply become a “pretext for stepping up the same policies that have provoked it - in other words, for administering more of the same toxic remedy that ends up killing the patient”? This is the way in which the introduction to this authentic and scientific book begins. It was written by Bernadette Clasquin, the Secretary-General of the Maison des Sciences de l'Homme Lorraine and Bernard Friot, Emeritus Professor at the Université de Paris Ouest Nanterre and a member of the European Institute of Wages. These writers launch a scathing attack that is backed up by examples but which is also provocative in the questions it poses. Its premise is that reform has been a launch pad for the last three decades for attacks on, “the socialised wage (or more precisely, its social contribution component) and the qualification system” and the goal of the European Union is to substitute the prevailing Bismarckian tradition in mainland Europe with the Anglo-Nordic Beveridgean model, which leaves workers at the mercy of the labour market. These authors' contributions seek to provide a rebellion against this masked counterrevolution by demonstrating the, “emancipatory potential of the continental tradition of the socialised wage” and the negative impact of the reforms developed within and in the name of the European Union. More precisely, this book seeks to illustrate that, “the waves of reform have been accelerated by the European Union via the succession of treaties signed over the past 30 years, and that the latter have generated or ratified national employment and social protection policies whose primary function is to change the nature of the wage to make it compatible with the model of flexicurity - a process that the current crisis has served to amplify”. All the different contributions are made by researchers involved in the European Resore project (Employees Resources and Social Rights in Europe) and confirm that we are indeed witnessing a deliberate strategy of dismantling the wage model that has prevailed in a significant part of Europe, at least in the five countries that form the core of this study, Austria, Belgium, Spain, France and Portugal. The book is divided into three major parts. The first presents and contextualises the issue in question; the second part analyses the Europeanization of wage and employment policies and the third, tackles implementation of these reforms at a national level. This book is both disturbing and edifying!
(MT)
*** JORDI GARCÉS, IRENE MONSONÍS PAYÁ (Editorial): Sustainability and Transformation in European Social Policy. Peter Lang (1 Moosstrasse, Postfach 350, CH-2542 Pieterlen. Tel: (41-32) 3761717 - fax: 3761727 - Email: info@peterlang.com - Internet: http://www.peterlang.com ). 2013, 349 pp. €66.90. ISBN 978-3-0343-0901-1.
The architect of the welfare state, Sir William Beveridge, was eager to tackle a number of problems such as disease, ignorance, poverty and idleness. It has to be said that this mission was fully accomplished because at least in our societies, there has never been so much protection in the history of humanity against diseases linked to old age, disability or unemployment. The problem is that now the solutions provided by the welfare state are increasingly considered by a number of people as being part of the problem itself and Menno Fenger points out in his introduction that “many welfare reform initiatives are aimed at combating the unintended consequences of social policy, much more than at protecting their citizens from the social risks these social policies were originally intended for”. In short, social welfare systems have produced unexpected consequences in terms of dependency, alienation and, with time, the growing feeling that, “solidarity is no longer an act of pooling risks” and that the system that is “just there” creates fractures in the social fabric and inefficiency. This book is the extension of a conference and includes contributions from scientists from all over Europe who seek to better understand the twofold change affecting social policy. On the one hand, it is subject to pressure from external demographic, geopolitical and economic factors and on the other, from internal problems that have been produced and impact on them. In addition to the traditional ideas of welfare, the pension systems, family policies, social models and the intervention of parenting are tackled, in addition to welfare tourism and the prevention of cyber bullying.
(PBo)
*** MATTHIAS DUMKE: Streikrecht i. S. des Art. 6 Nr 4 ESC und deutsches Arbeitskampfrecht, Vorgaben, Vereinbarkeit und Umsetzung. Peter Lang (see address attached). "Zivilrechtliche Schriften" series, No. 64. 2013, 420 pp. €77.95. ISBN 978-3-631-63864-5.
Matthias Dumke assesses the impact of Article 6 from the European Social Charter on European legislation involving conflicts in the workplace. This issue makes up the main thrust of his thesis, which he annexed to his study on the application of the laws governing strike action. First of all he establishes what are the different requirements set out in the European Social Charter and then examines the application and application conditions contained in this charter and in German domestic law. He also tackles the question of where Article 6 stands with regard to the European Social Charter's compatibility with Article 9, Paragraph 3 of the Fundamental German Law and highlights the legal and intrinsic limits contained in the law on strike action. Finally, he proposes a number of solutions to resolve examples of incompatibility affecting the law on strike action. In an effort to conclude this meticulous presentation and interpretation and his methodological examination of legal standards, the author also draws from a number of different disciplines such as history, linguistics and sociology as well as, obviously, the different branches of law used in this connection.
(GLe)
*** EDOARDO ALES (Editor): Health and Safety at Work. European and Comparative Perspective. Wolters Kluwer Law International (PO Box 316, 2400 AH Alphen aan den Rijn, Netherlands, Email: kluwerlawn@turpin-distribution.com - Internet: http://www.kluwerlaw.com ). "Studies in Employment and Social Policy" series, No. 42. 2013, 449 pp. €125, £100, $169. ISBN 978-90-411-4661-8.
This excellent volume is the result of efforts made by labour law specialists involved in the Pontignano International Seminars and the European Working Group on Labour Law. It is also the fruit of a far-reaching collective investigation and provides an insight into the current state of health and safety at work in a European context. Following the introductory paragraph by Berta Valdés de la Vega (University Castilla-La Mancha), who highlights how Community Europe is gradually tackling the issue of occupational health and safety, a very detailed examination is made into the way in which these issues are tackled in 10 Union member states (Germany, Austria, Belgium, Spain, France, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom). Conclusions are also contained in the book, which present the different results achieved in a comparative perspective. This reference book should prove useful for all those eager to know how rights and responsibilities in Europe at a level of employers and workers' representatives are developing. It also examines questions involving workplace inspections, legislation affecting pregnant women and other vulnerable groups, bullying and sexual harassment and the concept of a stress in the workplace, etc.
(PBo)
*** Futuribles. L'anticipation au service de l'action. Futuribles Sarl (47 rue de Babylone, F-75007 Paris. Tel: (33-1) 53633770 - fax: 42226554 - Email: revue@futuribles.com - Internet: http://www.futuribles.com ).September-October 2013, No. 396, 128 pp. €22. National subscription: €115. ISBN 978-2-84387-409-3.
In addition to the contribution by Professor Julien Damon ( Institute of Political Studies, Paris), this edition of this well-known French review also tackles the indispensable but difficult issue of pension reform in France. In his editorial, Hughes de Jouvenel, quotes Jean-Claude Junker in this connection, “we know what needs to be done . What we do not know is how we can be elected if we do it”. The director of this publication considers that the real question is therefore the one of whether governments in our democracy can really tackle the problems that impact on the public interest in the long-term, rather than who's going to get in at the next elections. This is a question that is not exclusively a concern to France, obviously. There is also an article in this issue on the subject of transatlantic free trade and whether this should be pursued more proactively.
(MT)