*** AURÉLIE TROUVÉ, MARIELLE BERRIET-SOLLIEC, DENIS LÉPICIER (Editors): Le développement rural en Europe. Quel avenir pour le deuxième pilier de la Politique agricole commune ? 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 ). "Business & Innovation" series, No. 4. 2013, 336 pp. €48.20. ISBN 978-2-87574-031-1.
Every year €40 billion in Europe is paid out to the agricultural community and the Common Agricultural Policy is subject to increasing criticism as to its social and environmental impact? This book therefore comes at the right time because it scientifically gauges the second pillar of the Common Agricultural Policy, which also officially focuses on rural development. A number of researchers, lecturer-researchers and engineers from the French National Institute of Agronomic Research, AgroSup Dijon, scientific partner institutions and Michel Dewit, an official from the European Commission, illustrate the different facets of this policy that was set up in 1999 and which has not ceased to assume greater importance at both political and budgetary levels. Throughout this book, access is provided by working frameworks and analysis methods, as well as relevant assessment mechanisms and levers for exercising action in the context of this policy.
The first part of the book explains the developments and limitations of the second pillar of Common Agricultural Policy, which was introduced at the same time as European regional policy and has subsequently led to a certain amount of ambiguity, as underlined by several different writers. Professor Jean-Christophe Kroll even goes as far as describing this pillar not as a healthy alternative but as an accompaniment to the deregulation of all the Community agricultural markets, which is in contradiction with the social and environmental functions of European agriculture. Two other contributions focus on implementation of the second pillar in 8 million different farming setups that range from very small farms, in central and Eastern European countries, as well as new politico-administrative organisations that have grown out of this pillar in the regions. The second part of the book includes contributions by writers focusing on implementation of the second pillar in the member states and regions and attempts to answer the question of whether the subsidiarity has not in fact led to the dismantling of all the ideology underpinning intervention. In this connection, Denis Lépicier and François-Gaël Lataste seek to respond to this question by looking at all the available budget data, which enables them to provide an estimate of the amount distributed in the member states and regions, as well as draw up a typology of the intervention that has occurred in the Union at large and in France more specifically. Other writers look at whether the second pillar has become more efficient and assess the impact of aid to farmers and farm regeneration in France, as well is in agri-environmental measures. One contribution focused on the European Leader programme.
In the final part of the book, the challenges of reforming the Common Agricultural Policy are also highlighted. Michel Dewit from DG Agriculture oversees rural development programmes in France and Benelux countries from a Commission perspective in this connection. In their conclusions, the editors of this book confirm that there are a certain number of limits to current policy, which would require at least a certain amount of reorientation. They also look at developing a Community development policy in rural territories that that takes into account all the different activities in the rural community and the relations between the cities and countryside. Pierre Bouvier
*** JENS HARTIG DANIELSEN: EU Agricultural Law. Kluwer Law International (PO Box 316, 2400 AH Alphen aan de Rijn, Pays-Bas. Tel: (31-172) 641400 - fax: 474889 - Email: info@wolterskluwer.com - Internet: http://www.kluwerlaw ). « European Monographs Series / Law & Business » series. 2013, 217 pp. €96 £77 $130. ISBN 978-90-411-3280-2.
The Common Agricultural Policy is one of the oldest and most important in European Union policies. It was created by the Treaty of Rome in 1957 and introduced in 1962 as a means of tackling the food shortages experienced through the Second World War. Since then, it has developed into effective European agricultural law and one of the Union policies that is most subject to European legal regulations. One part of the jurisprudential developments at the European Court of Justice subsequently derives from the regulations on the CAP. On this basis, Professor Jens Hartig Danielsen (University of Aarhus) considers that, “European agricultural law as a specialist discipline must be placed in the general context of Union law”. This monograph is divided into nine chapters and specifically seeks to establish a comprehensive and detailed analysis of European agricultural law. It is aimed at both academics and professionals who have the task of working in the European agricultural legal arena and could perhaps serve as a useful reference book in an area where legal doctrine is still subject to the number of limitations. First of all, the author seeks to explore the foundations and developments deriving from European agricultural law before going on to define its aims and main concepts. In the third chapter, it analyses the legal basis of European agricultural law, as well as the legislative procedure associated with it. The remainder of the book examines market organisation, rural and structural aid, the single payment system, rules on conditionality, competition and state aid. The final chapter focuses on European agricultural law in an international context, both at the level of the Gatt and the International Trade Organisation. (SD)
*** TRISTAN WEGNER: Überseekauf im Agrarhandel. Die Kontraktpraxis nach GAFTA und Einheitsbedingungen. Peter Lang (1 Moosstrasse, P.O. Box 350, CH-2542 Pieterlen. Tel: (41-32) 3761717 - fax: 3761727 - Email: info@peterlang.com - Internet: http://www.peterlang.com ). "Internationalrechtliche Studien / Beiträge zum Internationalen Privatrecht, zum Einheitsrecht und zur Rechtsvergleichung" series, No. 66. 2013, 518 pp. €91.95. ISBN 978-3-631-64106-4.
This thesis tackles contractual practices affecting domestic and international trade in fodder and grains. Tristan Wegner subsequently tackles an area that is indeed at the crossroads of commercial law and the law of the sea, as illustrated by the use of the Gafta sales contract (Grain and Free Trade Association contract on the international sales of grain, animal feeding stuffs). This involves British contract law, which is also used in Germany governing the trade of raw agricultural materials. The Gafta contract clauses are subject to a significant number of commentaries and these British legal contracts are compared with German contractual practices, particularly in the general conditions subject to standards on the German cereals market. This thesis successfully deals with shortcomings affecting this area. (GLe)
*** Pour. Groupe de recherche pour l'éducation et la prospective (c/o Association 4D, 150-154 rue du Faubourg St. Martin, F-75010 Paris. Tel: (33-1) 55331040 - fax: 55331041 - Email: grep.pour@wanadoo.fr - Internet: http://www.grep.fr ). Mars 2013, No. 217, 206 pp. €20. Subscription: €70 (France) or €80 (abroad).
Recently reviewed in Bibliothèque européenne, this journal deserves to be on the reading list of everyone who is interested in agriculture and rural affairs in the European Union. It was set up in 1964 by the Groupe de recherche pour l'éducation et la prospective that last year became the Groupe ruralités, éducation et politiques? This seeks to provide an understanding of rural affairs through educational and cultural initiatives involving the inhabitants-citizens-consumers. This approach involves educational initiatives among the populace, basic and continued training, as well as assistance for economic and social actors in this field. This approach is decidedly European, as borne out by this edition which, on the initiative of the Association Rural'Est, includes a feature on the new dynamics contained in rural areas in Eastern Europe and historical factors that weigh heavily from the past, more than twenty years after the beginning of the transition but which still affect countries from Central and Eastern Europe and those belonging to the Community of Independent States. The contributions illustrate how the democratic and economic transition has sometimes entered unexpected territory and certain analysts have even criticised the emergence of the same sorts of organisation as those in Western Europe because the agricultural and agri-feeds sectors are still characterised to a greater or lesser extent by the previous collective farms (kolkhozes). It also demonstrates, however, that there was a transfer of competencies from the West to the east and that the Leader programme could be effectively used to stimulate the potential of innovation in eastern countries. The feature article is extremely comprehensive and accurately describes the diversity that exists in the European context. (MT)
*** NICOLAS MARTY: L'invention de l'eau embouteillée. Qualités, normes et marchés de l'eau en bouteille en Europe, XIXe-XXe siècles. Presses Interuniversitaires Européennes / Peter Lang (see address details attached). "L'Europe alimentaire" series, No. 5. 2013, 397 pp. €50.30. ISBN 978-2-87574-090-8.
This is a book that seeks to illustrate all the ramifications of the Right2water citizens' initiative agreed to by the Commission on 19 March last. The author is a lecturer in contemporary history at the University of Perpignan, as well as a specialist in consumer goods markets in Europe and the secretary-general of the French Economic History Association. In this book he describes in both a clear and knowledgeable way the invention, just a century and a half ago, of bottled water and its irresistible expansion over the three decades that followed the Second World War. Nicolas Marty explains that this was essentially a European phenomenon and that the consumption of bottled water was practically unknown in the US until the 1970s. In his examination he also shows how this industrial drink was devised and distributed to the extent that it became part of mass production. His areas of analysis include contemporary France and Italy but he also explains that the Mexicans drink more bottled water a year then citizens in Italy, Germany, Belgium, Spain and the United Kingdom. The author's starting point is that devising and applying standards result from the decisions and behaviour of economic actors. Nicholas Marty subsequently seeks to provide an explanation about how this food product market has been defined and regulated by public bodies, the actors on the ground and their representative organisations and ultimately the legal regulation in place. He argues that there is a close relationship between standards and products, institutions and markets rather than a dichotomy between them. Rather than simply focusing on the chronology of the implementation involving product quality standards for bottled water, the author seeks to understand the role played by standards in the process of distributing this product. This approach obviously leads him to assess the Union connection because all bottled mineral water is now a product subject to European standards since 1997 by way of the international Codex alimentarius. How was this result achieved? This is one of the questions that Nicolas Marty seeks to provide a more than satisfactory explanation and he goes back to the roots of European legislation on bottled water and puts this legislation in to a context of how they were devised and used by market actors from the very beginning to their incorporation into the single framework of the European economy. (MT)
*** GIOVANNI CECCARELLI, ALBERTO GRANDI, STEFANO MAGAGNOLI: Typicality in History / La typicité dans l'histoire. Tradition, Innovation, and Terroir / Tradition, innovation et terroir. Presses Interuniversitaires Européennes / Peter Lang ( see address details attached). "European Food Issues / L'Europe alimentaire" series, No. 4. 2013, 476 pp. €53. ISBN 978-2-87574-007-6.
This book contains many contributions in English as well as a few in French on the recent international conference that brought together almost thirty different specialists involved in the food history laboratory initiative at the University of Parma. He sheds light on the roots of these so-called “typical” products and subsequently provides a meticulously scientific dissection of the mechanisms that have allowed for its expansion. This expansion has been particularly noticeable and impressive in the European Union, as indicated by the editors of the book in their introduction. According to them, this rising power is due to the very solid ideological connotations because, “typical products have become the standard-bearer of an agri-food sector that is considered as being both healthy and good, in comparison to mass production and the levelling out of tastes imposed by evil multinationals”. The first lesson this book draws is that the reality that actually exists is much more complex. All the different contributions show that product typicality is inextricably and simultaneously linked to regional concepts, tradition, identity, consumer habits, in the market and at a local development level. The first of these contributions explains, for example, the history of the very French notion of “terroir”, which is interpreted in a very diverse way in the different European countries and with the “revolution in trade” that in the United Kingdom even led to the claim of typical features not being determined by regional considerations. The other writers in the first part of the book also show how products that seek to be recognised as containing typical features by the consumer require some kind of legend or myth behind them, which is still the case in this era of supermarkets. Typical products, however, are subject to industrialisation and marketing and can even experience negative trajectories. The role played by the institutions in this regard is subject to particular examination in the second part of the book, particularly with regard to cases involving Swiss chocolate and cheese. By examining the trade in cheese between France and Italy, David Burigana, demonstrates that the system of typical products has helped to change the course of the Common Agricultural Policy. The concluding part of the book also provides an extremely interesting account of the effect of this area on the tourist industry. (MT)