*** CHRISTOPHE DEGRYSE (Ed.): 1973-2013: 40 ans d'histoire de la Confédération européenne des syndicats. European Trade Union Institute (5 bd du Roi Albert II, B-1210 Brussels. Tel: (32-2) 2240470 - fax: 2240502 - email: etui@etui.org - Internet: http://www.etui.org ). 2013, 251 pp, €25. ISBN 978-2-87452-303-8.
Still a journalist at heart, Christophe Degryse benefited from the aid of Pierre Rilly and the opinions and enlightened remembrances of former key players of the likes of Emilio Gabaglio, Jean Lapeyre and John Monks in writing this lively and reliable long history of forty years of the European Trade Union Confederation. This retrospective on the path trodden by the European trade union world - and by Europe under the impulse of the former and also when it didn't pay enough attention to the former… - reveals through its workings that are both scientific and political, an approach and the thread of an unlikely history, made up of success and failure, that still retains the promise in these times of 'de-legitimisation of collective action,' of a pluralist structure (which contains within it organisations inspired by social-democratic, communist and social-Christian trends) representing more than 16% of everyone who works in the European Union, including eighty-five member organisations, ten sector-specific trade union federations and in all, the princely sum of 45 million affiliates. The ETUC is now, more than ever, determined to pursue the fight to 'avoid discordance between a structure of society in which the economy would be by nature transnational, politics national or regional, and the world of work confined to the company.'
It will therefore come as no surprise that the credo of this book is that European trade unionism is anything but a 'relic from the past.' The crisis that is still affecting too many citizens in the EU member states certainly lends some credence to this viewpoint. All the same, the life of the European trade union movement has not been a tranquil, meandering river, and there is no reason to imagine that this will change in the future. In any event, right from the first chapter, the author does not attempt to hide the problems encountered in creating a regional European organisation that transcended the ideological divides of the post-Second World War world. Christophe Degryse follows by telling the tale of the drawing up of a 'social Community doctrine' and describes forty years of 'European trade union battles' with changing ETUC demands, congresses and its relations with the European institutions. He also describes how the ETUC operates, reviewing its mechanisms, players, decision-making capacity and actions, and also its expansion as the European Union itself has expanded. Five other chapters describe the organisation's political orientations in the light of its action as a 'player in European social dialogue' in its - to say the least - highly divergent phases (and with mixed results, even though they all helped improve workers' daily lives), its reflection processes to elaborate 'its own conception of how European economic governance should be' and a form of economic democracy (following on from lessons to be learned from, for example, the brutal restructuring of Michelin and Renault-Vilvorde), along with its position against the backdrop of globalization…
There are many, often complex, lessons to be learned from this venture. Nevertheless, as Christophe Degryse points out in his conclusions, the need for an organisation like the European Trade Union Confederation is obvious, given that apart from a few exceptions such as Jacques Delors, 'most of the people who make the European institutions live rarely concern themselves with the fate of workers, apart from wrongly believing that all one has to do is to make the economy more competitive so that better living and working conditions for Europeans will automatically trickle down.' It would no doubt be going too far to claim that the European Union is indifferent to the fate of its workers, but surely it is appropriate to dare to ask 'what today's Europe would have been without the action carried out by the ETUC, its affiliates and political allies over the past forty years'? The answer seems clear. In the preface, Bernadette Ségol, the current ETUC secretary general, describes her certainty at any rate that 'European trade unionism has not gone astray,' but also expresses this almost existential doubt: with the 'excesses of casino capitalism and the deep crisis that this mad capitalism has generated,' is it the European Union itself that has betrayed its original promises?
Michel Theys
*** RAFAEL CHAVES, DANIÈLE DEMOUSTIER (Eds.): The Emergence of the Social Economy in Public Policy / L'émergence de l'Économie sociale dans les politiques publiques. An International Analysis / Une analyse internationale. 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 ). "Économie sociale & Économie publique" series, No. 4. 2013, 367 pp, €48-70. ISBN 978-2-87574-068-7.
Few would be surprised that the current - interminable - financial, economic and social crisis has led to an ever stronger feeling of the requirement to develop new forms of responses to social needs. The social economy is therefore again becoming a focal point for public authorities thanks to the great value-added that the authorities see as its potentiality, be it in terms of jobs, economic development, credit or social services. This book publishes the results of a study carried out by researchers at the International Centre of Research and Information (a scientific body that helps draw up the European Economic and Social Committee's opinions) on the public, social and cooperative economy in order to make an initial assessment of this public recognition and its impact on the ground. The first two chapters provide a general approach to public policies via the Social Economy, both in terms of how public policies are constructed, how they operate, their aims and how they evolve over time. The realities of the Social Economy are then considered from the European viewpoint, the viewpoint of countries in southern Europe and, finally, the viewpoint of a number of Latin American countries. The essays in the final section enable readers to discover the highly divergent manner in which the Social Economy is rising in countries and regions such as Belgium, Spain, France, the United Kingdom, the Basque Country and Japan. For this European Library review, we would like to place particular emphasis on the work of Enzo Pezzini (a representative of the Italian Confederation of Cooperatives to the European Union) and Karine Pflüger (a lawyer who is, among other things, coordinator of the European Parliament's Intergroup on the Social Economy), who provide a very detailed assessment of the European Union's commitment to the Social Economy. They grant a satisfecit to the European Parliament and the European Economic and Social Committee for having long been actively promoting the Social Economy as a vector for growth in jobs and the regions, but point out that despite a conducive environment for the introduction of public policies favourable to the Social Economy, players are left frustrated and still have little weight compared with big industrial and financial lobbies. This is notably due to the fact, they say, that the European Commission is still undecided, wavering between a dichotomic approach (between business and social affairs) and an integrated approach (palliative or structuring). The authors say that the Commission's approach has taken Social Economy organisations and companies 'from marginality to overexploitation,' which runs the huge risk of them being wrongly seen as a cure for all ills.
(MT)
*** ALEXANDROS DAGKAS: Le mouvement social dans le Sud-est européen pendant le XXème siècle: questions de classe, questions de culture. Editions Epikentro (9 rue Kamvounion, GR-54621, Thessalonica. Tel: (30-231) 0256146 - Fax: 0256148 - Email: books@epikentro.gr- Internet: http://www.epikentro.gr ). 2013,423pp, €37-28. ISBN 978-960458156-6.
During the course of the ideological conflict that rocked the twentieth century, the Marxist approach was always based on the importance of the economy and the means of production, but never underestimated culture. Problems of culture, connected for example with the class struggle, the political behaviour of the workers' party and the power of the party, arose in the framework of material conditions of production. Senior lecturer in social history at the pedagogical science faculty of Aristotle University in Thessalonica, Alexandros Dagkas looks in this book at a number of social groups, for example cultural groups such as Jews and political groups such as the communists, and tries to study representations of their mentality and lifestyles over the twentieth century. He does this by looking at the role played by these groups in production, and also in their cultural identity. This research into the characteristics of social groups enables him to reveal their attitudes and values, and the way these influenced the formulation and even the culture of political parties.
(AKa)
*** YANNIS VASSILIOU: L'intégration européenne. Un processus de convergence ou de divergence? Editions Historical Quest (66 Chrisiidos, GR-13122 Ilion. Tel: (30-210) 2611832 - Email: info@historical-quest.com - Internet: http://www.historical-quest.com ). 2014, 248 pp, €20. ISBN 978-618-80309-4-7.
The European Union's regional policy aims to boost European integration, its main objective being economic convergence. Although all member states have taken advantage of them, European regional funds have not been able to remove the causes of the economic gaps between the regions, which continue to exist, even in the EU15. This damages balance within the EU and hinders efforts to boost social cohesion. A researcher in European history at Birmingham University takes a critical look in this book at the economic differences between the regions in today's European Union. He calls for lessons to be learned about the design of regional policy post-2013 in order to ensure genuine cohesion within the expanded EU.
(AKa)
*** MARTINA BÜTER: Die Befristung von Arbeitsverhältnissen in Deutschland und Frankreich. Peter Lang (1 Moostrasse, P.O. Box 350, CH-2542 Pieterlen. Tel: (41-32) 3761717 - Fax: 3761727 - Email: info@peterlang.com - Internet: http://www.peterlang.com ). "Studien zum Arbeitsrecht und zur Arbeitsrechtvergleichung" series, No. 23. 2013, 236 pp, €59-95. ISBN 978-3-631-62772-3.
In this thesis, Martina Büter makes a comparative study of the law governing fixed term contracts in Germany and France. She starts by setting out the objectives, contents and domain of application of European Directive 1999/70/EC, which serves as a general framework for the French and German legislation in this domain. There follows a comparative study of the two legal systems in the light of the regulations introduced by the legislator and also those arising from collective bargaining in each country. The author highlights the differences in collective bargaining law and rules introducing limits on fixed term contracts. Overall, this academic study reveals the French legislator's greater propensity to restrict fixed term contracts and introduce stronger penalties for breaking the legislation.
(GLe)
*** LUC DE BROE, MARIEKE WYCKAERT (Eds.): Corporate Mobility in België en Europa. Vennootschapsrechtelijke en fiscaalrechtelijke perspectieven. Intersentia (31 Groenstraat, B-2640 Mortsel. Tel: (32-3) 6801553 - Fax: 6587121 - Email: mail@intersentia.be - Internet: http://www.intersentia.com ). Jura Falconis Libri series, No. 17. 2014, 142 pp, €45, £43, $63. ISBN 978-94-000-0470-2.
This issue of Jura Falconis, a review produced by the law faculty at the Katholieke Universitaat van Leuven, whose name refers to the De Valk (falcon) College where the faculty is established, publishes the proceedings of the 2013 version of the traditional annual seminar organised by students. The book is divided into two main sections. The first deals with prospects for company law. Lawyer Marieke Wyckaert, lecturer at KULeuven, connects theory and practice by pointing out firstly that the 'founding fathers' of the European Union did not harmonise company law and that nothing seems to be leading in that direction for the moment. She says that corporate mobility did not really become a talking point until the turn of the century, when the business, shareholders and governance of companies became Europeanised or even internationalised. Since then, companies are becoming increasing active as virtualities, and the European Commission is not very enthusiastic about contracting law for the cross-border transfers of companies. In its most recent action plan, dated 12 December 2012, the Commission cautiously announces that it will be holding consultations to see whether legislation on company transfers would be appropriate. Hans De Wulf, with the aid of Kristof Maresceau, looks at the impact of recent European Court of Justice rulings on cross-border moves and the freedom of establishment for companies in the European Union. In the light of a number of rulings (Daily Mail, Cartesio, Vale, Centros, Überseering and Inspire Art en Sevic), he says that the Court of Justice has given companies a taste for the free European market, which hasn't prevented there being plenty of leg-room for interpretation in case law. Finally, Erik De Bie and Filip Genné analyse cross-border transfers under Belgian law, noting that the Court of Justice rulings provide lawyers with little in the way of clarity. Future prospects for fiscal law are examined in the second part of the book. Prof. Luc De Broe describes the general backdrop to fiscal issues connected with corporate mobility, while other contributors look at particular budget bottlenecks and the role of Belgian taxes in causing companies to either come to Belgium or to leave the country.
(JCu)