*** JOCELYN GUITTON: Quel gouvernement économique pour l'Union européenne? Editions Bruylant (Groupe Larcier, 39 rue des Minimes, B-1000 Brussels. Tel: (32-10) 482511 - Fax: 482693 - email: commande@deboeckservices.com - Internet: http://www.bruylant.be ). "Macro droit - Micro droit” series. 2013, 143 pp, €45. ISBN 978-2-8027-4223-4.
In this essay, confused, sparse and technically complex information connected with the many-sided crisis the European Union has been undergoing since 2008 finds itself dressed in simplicity. One of the great merits of Jocelyn Guitton is that his book applies the art of intelligent popularisation to current events. Everything in the book is characterised by rigorous accuracy, with nothing is presented in an unintelligible or deliberately occult manner. This chief lecturer in economics at Sciences Po Paris and manager at the European Commission adds political commitment to clarity of thought. He does not hesitate to argue that the European Union and particularly the eurozone, remain an unfinished, rickety structures suffering from over-fragmented governance. The only way, he says, to solve the 'deviance and indecision' that are undermining the EU is to create a genuine European economic government - a duly argued appeal that bears witness to the fact that the caste of militant European officials lives on somewhere in the environs of the Berlaymont…
In the preface, Commissioner Michel Barnier points out that whatever most Europeans might think, 'Europe is moving forward, probably at a faster rate than ever.' He is right, and the author recognises as much in the introduction when he says that the European economy, 'and even the single currency' are doing well, as is shown by the fact that Kosovo and Montenegro have unilaterally joined the euro as their only currency. So why then are the eurozone and the European Union as a whole in crisis? The book is devoted to answering this question in a reader-friendly manner. To start off, Guitton takes the reader by the hand and leads him on a visit of a 'balanced economic construction,' showing him the failings of a 'federal-type currency' that has to cohabit with national budgets, the limits of the Stability and Growth Pact, not to mention the more damaging limits of convergence between a continental Europe and a Latin Europe. He goes on to explain why there is the taste of unfinished business in the management of the crisis, despite the fact that the end of the euro would be exorbitantly expensive. Drawing up an inventory of the various positions recommended thus far to save the day, from the six-pack to the Golden Rule via the two-pack and the Budget Pact, he asks whether eurozone nations are now condemned to perpetual austerity. The European Central Bank is the only body he does not fault, saying it has become the guarantor for the survival of the euro in the eye of the storm, irrespective of how this comment may irritate Commissioner Olli Rehn and the litany of finance ministers - not to mention the members of Olympia, oops, I mean the European Council… Finally, he reviews the constraints borne by Europe against the backdrop of globalisation, namely the temptation of turning to protectionist measures and the impasse that protectionism would lead to, he says, along with the need for Europe to assert itself among its partners by demanding reciprocity, the member states seemingly being held hostage by the money markets and credit rating agencies. A number of other matters are also addressed in this section.
The fourth part of the book looks at the key question that gives the book its title. Jocelyn Guitton starts by commenting on a number of preliminary questions that have to be answered. The first is how differentiated integration would work in practice. Rather than continuing with opt-outs and other one-off exemptions or a number of different 'variable geometry' unions superimposed one on top of the other, he says things need to be clarified and it must be accepted that a hard core of and around the eurozone will move in the direction of the highest possible level of integration in a way that liberates them from the EU28 club, such as is already allowed under Article 136 of the treaty on the functioning of the European Union. In addition, he recommends favouring changes as far as possible without adjusting the treaties and, most importantly, preserving the Community Method. In this respect, he points out that it would be good for the European Summit to put the Merkozy episode behind it and return to what it was supposed to become. It is clearly a matter of putting the institutions that guarantee the general European interest back in the centre of things, starting with the European Commission, which must stop being a simple secretariat - a slippage that exposes EU decision-making to the whims of political changes on the Council of Ministers and, more importantly, elections in the various member states, particularly the large ones. The author suggests setting up a treasury for the eurozone and, as far as budget surveillance of euro countries is concerned, he says permanent association should be ensured of national parliaments and the European Parliament, which is the price to be paid for democratic legitimacy.
Michel Theys
*** NIKOS KOTZIAS: ÅëëÜäá áðïéêßá ÷ñÝïõò (Règlement de la dette en Grèce). ÅõñùðáúêÞ áõôïêñáôïñßá êáé ãåñìáíéêÞ ðñùôïêáèåäñßá (Empire européen et leadership allemand). Editions Patakis (38 Pan. Tsaldari Str., GR-10437 Athens. Tel: (30-210) 3650000 - Fax: 3650069 - email: info@patakis.gr - Internet: http://www.patakis.gr ). Sciences sociales et politiques series. 2013, 488 pp, €19-90. ISBN 978-960-16-4966-5.
In this book, economist Nikos Kotzias provides a new interpretation of the social and institutional impact of the Greek and European crisis in recent years. Based on an assessment of the records of empires over the past half a millennium, he argues that the European Union is moving towards an empire based on: a) the financial markets; b) the Brussels bureaucracy; and c) Germany. The author argues that the EU is increasingly encouraging the trend of member states having an unequal status, discerning the emerging of a chain headed by Germany, of course, and ending in southern European countries. He says that the dominant countries, headed by Germany, will increasingly give free rein to an economic and cultural nationalism or even pure and simple racism. The author analyses the present monitoring system in Greece, seeking to demonstrate how it operates and the mechanisms and programmes it uses to implements the 'destructive' activity of the troika and Berlin. He also lays a heavy burden of responsibility on the Greek oligarchy, before moving on to make suggestions of how Greece can escape from the mousetrap.
(AKa)
*** PANAGIOTIS ROUMELIOTIS: ÐñïóùðéêÞ ìáñôõñßá: Ôï Üãíùóôï ðáñáóêÞíéï ôçò ðñïóöõãÞò óôï ÄÍÔ (Témoignage personnel: les coulisses inconnues du recours au FMI). Ðþò êáé ãéáôß öôÜóáìå óôï Ìíçìüíéï (Comment et pourquoi nous sommes arrivés au mémorandum). Editions Livanis (98 Solonos 98, GR-10680 Athens. Tel: (30-210) 3661200 - email: webmaster@livanis.gr - Internet: http://www.livanis.gr ). 2012, 383 pp, €16-50. ISBN 978-960-14-2558-0.
Panagiotis Roumeliotis was the Greek representative at the International Monetary Fund in the crucial period, for Greece, from March 2010 to December 2011. In this book, he provides a first-hand eye-witness account of the events and various stages that led the country to decide to agree to the Memorandum of Understanding. He methodically explains how by accepting the criteria laid down by its European partners and the IMF, Greece gave up large swathes of its financial sovereignty. To avoid bankruptcy and ensure it remained in the eurozone, the little country of Greece had no choice but to bitterly and angrily accept the conditions laid down by the troika in the first and second memoranda, he explains, which turned Greece into the lenders' 'colony.
(AKa)
*** GEORGE KONTOGIORGIS: Êïììáôïêñáôßá êáé äõíáóôéêü êñÜôïò (La politique du Parti et de l'Etat dynastiques). Ìéá åñìçíåßá ôïõ åëëçíéêïý áäéåîüäïõ (Une interprétation de l'impasse grecque). Patakis (see above). Sciences sociales et politiques series. 2012, 240 pp, €22-50. ISBN 978-960-16-4545-2.
Professor at Athens University and the Institut d'Etudes Politiques in Paris, and director of research at the CNRS, George Kontogiorgis explains in this book what he feels are the main causes of the Greek crisis, which he says had been brewing for nearly two centuries. He shows the perverse mechanisms that enabled the party machines to seize the political system and allowed politicians to act as the leaders of society. In his essay, George Kontogiorgis notes the impasse of modernity in Greece, going on to explain that the solution lies in rebuilding the relationship between politics and society, which will only be possible when institutions deal with social voluntarism in state policies.
(AKa)
*** DENIS ALT: Dezentralität, Föderalismus und Wachstum. Eine international vergleichende Analyse. Peter Lang (1 Moosstrasse, Postfach 350, CH-2542 Pieterlen. Tel: (41-32) 3761717 - Fax: 3761727 - email: info@peterlang.com - Internet: http://www.peterlang.com ). "Financial Economics & Economic Policy," No. 2. 2013, 200 pp, €47.95. ISBN 978-3-631-63490-5.
Denis Alt argues that a highly decentralised state can act as an obstacle to economic prosperity. He assesses the validity of this thesis by examining political, constitutional, economic, tax and geographical criteria. He clearly distinguishes between developed and developing countries and emerging economies. His examination of a number of variables and the state structure of fifty-seven nations enables him to make complex and subtle distinctions between the various states under study, depending on their level of decentralisation and their economic prosperity. Although at times he defends particular types of state organisation, his deductions are based above all on well-founded theoretical, practical and statistical foundations.
(GLe)
*** ANDRA COTIGA: Le droit Européen des sociétés. Compétition entre les systèmes juridiques dans l'Union européenne. Éditions Larcier (39 rue des Minimes, B-1000 Brussels. Tel: (32-2) 5480713 - Fax: 5480714 - email: commande@larciergroup.com - Internet: http://www.larciergroup.com ). "Europe(s)" series. 2013, 445 pp, €105. ISBN 978-2-8044-6053-2.
With the founding of the European Union, did the freedom of circulation allow individuals and companies to chose the law that applies to them, given that the EU was conjugated from the variation in national legislation? Didn't it generate the risk of seeing countries where the legislation is tighter seeing its inhabitants and companies simply leave for countries with more relaxed laws? Above all, doesn't the European Union in this way run the series risk of becoming a legislative supermarket, with bad legislation forcing out good legislation, as used to happen with currencies? These key questions are raised in the preface by Prof. Françoise Dekeuwer-Defossez, and Andra Cotiga has provided enlightened responses in her doctoral thesis in international private law in Hamburg, developed at the Max Planck Institute. The quality of her work, not to mention the innovative nature of his quest, merit this legal and economic examination of the impact of the co-existence of twenty-eight different legal systems being brought to the awareness of a wider public because, as the preface-writer, honorary dean of the Legal, Political and Social Science Faculty at the Universite Catholique of Lille in France explains, competition among legal systems could, if it brings with it the risk of a degradation of domestic legislation, give rise to disorder that could threaten the founding principles of the European Union. After a detour to the United States and work on the impact of institutional competition, the researcher transposes this into the European context in the light of the protecting awarded to staff, shareholders and lenders, paying particular attention to the latter, given the fact that it is possible to shop around for the location of company headquarters. In so doing, she shows that the triggering of company mobility paves the way, in the absence of a uniform conflict of law rule, to legal insecurity, particularly for the protection of lenders, which is why she demands clarification of the rules governing the determination of a company's headquarters, in order to avoid the unpredictability of legal decisions that would damage the genuine rule of law. The author makes a remarkable case for the co-existence of legal systems not being allowed to become a regressive element!
(PBo)
*** Summit Report. European Business Summit (28 rue du Belvédère, B-1050 Brussels. Tel: (32-2) 6453484 - Fax: 6453489 - email: info@ebsummit.eu - Internet: http://www.ebsummit.eu ). 2013, 103 pp.
This publication gives an account of the eleventh European Business Summit, which took place in Brussels on 15 and 16 May 2013, organised by the European employers' organisation, Business Europe, and the Belgian Business Federation. The various conference workshops are described in summary, including one on how to promote growth in Europe and release industrial potential. A huge number of European figureheads are mentioned, from President Barroso to Pascal Lamy via a number of European Commissioners. The publication explains that the twelfth European Business Summit will be held on 14 and 15 May 2014.
(PBo)