*** GIULIANA LASCHI (Ed.): The European Community and the World. A Historical Perspective. Presses Interuniversitaires Européennes / Peter Lang (1 av. Maurice, B-1050 Brussels. Tel: (41-32) 3761717 - Fax: 3761727 - Email: info@peterlang.com - http://www.peterlang.com ). Euroclio series, No. 81. 2014, 182 pp, €43.90. ISBN 978-2-87574-135-6.
If, as Jacques Delors neatly put it, the European Union is still an 'unidentified political object,' what can be said about the way it has asserted itself in international relations over the past sixty years? No doubt it is still very inconsistent in the field of traditional foreign policy, which largely remains the prerogative of its Member States, particularly the 'big' Member States. All the same, it has taken a major role in international relations by following side-roads under the name, for example, of trade policy, the Common Agricultural Policy, various agreements with countries outside the EU or with other regions of the world, development cooperation and so on. Political scientists, lawyers and others have been producing research and studies for a long time on how the European Union projects itself in the world, but until now, historians specialising in European integration had done little study in this domain. Giuliana Laschi set about to fill this gap through research developed in the framework of the Jean Monnet Chair Jean Monnet that she holds ad personam at Campus Forli at Bologna University. She has been able to form a group of young researchers around her from a range of scientific and geographical horizons, who are at pains in these pages to discern the identity that the European Union has managed to project in the world through a sui generis foreign policy.
First of all, a regret: the names of the players are given, of course, but not the job they hold or the university or research centre where they are active; and this is a shame because it deprives the reader of markers to help him place and grasp the particular analysis he's looking at… Putting that to one side, two of the first essays look at the islands that are part of the European Union (Carlos Pacheco Amaral examines the various types of status - political, legal and fiscal - that they may enjoy) and also EU islands elsewhere in the world, ultraperipheral regions that are left over from a colonial past, which leads Isabel Valente to point out that 'the European Union is the only continental space that can affirm its presence at the heart of the Indian Ocean, of the Caribbean and of South America, opening possibilities for the EU to foster deeper external relations within a global international system.' A very interesting overview is made by Fabio Casini of the way Europe has tried to present itself to the world through its information policy since the days of the European Coal and Steel Community in the 1950's. He demonstrates and then analyses how the Europe's information offices arose in other non-EU countries, such as the United States and the … United Kingdom in the 1960's, explaining for example that the opening of an information office in Athens was opposed at one time by the EU Council of Ministers, which feared that Turkey would want one too. Alessandra Bitumi's essay points out that at the end of the 1960's and under the instigation of the European Parliament, a Programme of Visitors to the European Community was launched which aimed at first to 'create an ever denser network of contacts between European Community bodies and the elite in the United States to help get Europe better-known on the other side of the Atlantic,' the scope of which was later substantially expanded. Other, equally interesting essays, cover the Caspian Sea's legal status in the European Neighbourhood Policy and the EU's relations with India on the one hand and Latin America on the other, looked at from different angles: the role played by European immigrants in Patagonia for the very close link that was developed with Chile; the key role played by Spain in a region that has gained in autonomy in recent years; and finally, the reasons why the European integration model has given rise to a number of similar moves in Latin America, none of which have achieved such convincing results as in Europe.
To save the finest morsel until last, we could not fail to mention the introductory chapter by Giuliana Laschi on what she judges to be the European Community's 'flagship success' in its relations with the world around it, viz. its enlargement policy that enabled it to 'turn the outer space into internal space.' This 'effective tool' was severely put to the test when it came to enlargement to Central and East European countries, which she explains by the 'existence of two Europes,' which have not been able to meet on an equal footing under a new jointly drafted pact, which would have been able to remove any temptation in the direction of western Eurocentrism, she explains, and would also have been able to avoid a feeling of damaged dignity. The historian states that the opportunity for this was provided by the European constitution, but it was not taken up because some States preferred intergovernmental European integration process theory or even the idea that others should adjust to a model that had basically proved its worth. Can one really sweep aside this explanation?
Michel Theys
*** KLAUS SCHWICHTENBERG: Die Kooperationsverpflichtung der Mitgliedstaaten der Europäischen Union bei Abschluss und Anwendung gemischter Verträge. 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 ). "Augsburger Studien zum internationalen Recht" series. 2014, 320 pp, €66.95. ISBN 978-3-631-65056-1.
In the conduct of its foreign policy, the European Union often signs mixed treaties, i.e. treaties between itself and its Member States on the one hand and non-EU countries on the other. The use of such treaties is due as far as Europe is concerned to the fact that the EU and its Member States have different areas of competence. These treaties cause problems, however, when they are drawn up by Europe, a phase during which close cooperation between the European Union and its Member States would be absolutely crucial. This duty to cooperate, however, does not yet have any legal anchorage that is any more solid that that of case-law and there is not in fact any obligation to cooperate. The causes and effects of this lack of duty to cooperate are studied in detail in this thesis, in which Klaus Schwichtenberg advances proposals on how to fill the gap.
(GLe)
*** GERHARD NIEDRIST (Ed.): Commercial Integration between the European Union and Mexico. Multidisciplinary Studies. Peter Lang (see above). PL Academic Research series. 2013, 242 pp, €54.95. ISBN 978-3-631-64831-5.
Commercial integration between the European Union and Mexico is of strategic importance for both sides. After the United States, Mexico's biggest trading partner is the European Union, which enables it to escape slightly from its economic dependency on the United States. As a member of the North Atlantic Free-Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and due to its geographical proximity to the United States, Mexico is of major geopolitical interest to the EU, but although a fair number of studies of NATFA have been carried out, the free-trade deal between Mexico and the European Union has largely been ignored by researchers. Edited by the director of a Masters course in international law in Monterrey, this multidisciplinary book fills the gap because it analyses the EU's free-trade deal with Mexico from the legal, economic and business management viewpoint. The essays in this volume present an assessment of the agreement's results and the challenges that need to be dealt with, with some authors also providing answers to the question of whether sufficient opportunities arise from the deal or whether adjustments need to be made in the future to improve matters.
(SLa)
*** L'Europe en formation. Revue d'études sur la construction européenne et le fédéralisme - Journal of Studies on European Integration and Federalism. Centre International de Formation Européenne (10 av. des Fleurs, F-06000 Nice. Tel: (33-4) 93979397 - Fax: 93979398 - Email: europe.formation@cife.eu - Internet: http://www.europeenformation.eu ). 2013, No. 370, 216 pp, €20. Subscription: €50.
This issue of a review founded by Alexandre Marc contains a very rich special report on the relations between the European Union and China, considered for example in the light of geopolitical changes that will increase the power of South-East Asia in the twenty-first century, the ten years of strategic partnership and economic relations between the EU and Beijing, and the question of climate change.
(PBo)
*** CANDICE MOORE (Ed.): Regional Integration and Social Cohesion. Perspectives from the Developing World. Presses Interuniversitaires Européennes/Peter Lang (see above). Regional Integration and Social Cohesion series, No. 12. 2013, 234 pp, €40.70. ISBN 978-90-5201-063-2.
In this book, experts from developing countries examine the question of whether regional integration in the way it is currently practised in Africa is able to encourage development and thus social cohesion on the African continent, along with elsewhere in the world. The challenges are multiple and highly varied, and some essays suggest first that they be differentiated according to whether they arise simply from regional cooperation or from regional integration proper. In terms of the possible existence of a continental awareness in Africa, it is clearly stated that national sovereignty often over-rides regional and continental aspects. Without ignoring the national and infranational levels in the introduction of social objectives, the authors suggest a path in the direction of greater awareness of the barriers to the introduction of social policies by analysing the various concepts of social cohesion prevailing in the different regions examined, from Latin America to Vietnam via South Africa.
(SLa)
*** SOTIRIS DALIS, KONSTANTINOS MAGLIVERAS, IOANNIS SAKKAS (Eds.): La Méditerranée, la Grèce et le monde. Hier et aujourd'hui. Editions Papazisi (2 Nikitara, GR-10678 Athens. Tel: (30-210) 3822496 - Fax: 2103809020 - Email: papazisi@otenet.gr - Internet: http://www.papazisi.gr ). 2014, 262 pp, €18. ÉSBN 978-960-02-2985-1.
This collection of essays headed by three lecturers in international relations at the University of the Aegean includes contributions from teaching staff at the Department of Mediterranean Studies at the same university. It aims to be a type of reflection of the heritage of memory and culture around the Mediterranean, known as the mare nostrum by the Romans. It also aims to be an invitation to the peoples living around the Mediterranean to capture or re-capture their incredible, multiform heritage, ranging from the epic to the tragic. And therefore it is, following on from the ideas of French philosopher Edgar Morin, a call for acceptance of Mediterranean diversity, in order to surmount divisions and advance in research into understanding and, at the end of the day, union. As Dalis, Magliveras and Sakkas point out, the Mediterranean is both a sea symptomising communication and conflicts, a sea of polytheism and monotheisms, and a sea of fanaticism and intolerance. Borders are not inscribed in time or space around the Mediterranean. How should they be defined, and on what basis? There aren't any historical, national or ethnic barriers, argues Predrag Matvegevits, one of the most important figures in modern Slav literature. It is difficult to get a grip on the entire Mediterranean region particularly because there is something inexplicable that always pushes its inhabitants to reshape the Mediterranean mosaic. These days, the Mediterranean has in a way retracted into itself following the development of the Atlantic and then the Pacific. It is no more than simply a lake as far as the world is concerned, although it is located in a seismic zone where religions confront each other, as do secularism and religion, the rich and the poor, the West and the East, the North and the South. Hence the appeal made in the pages of this book to rediscover the Mediterranean's essence and its mission to combine communication, tolerance and rationality.
(AKa)
*** DELPHINE DESCHAUX-BEAUME, ANDRE DUMOULIN, SYLVAIN PAILE (Eds.): Politiques de communication, médias et défense. L'OTAN et la PSDC: visibilité en Belgique et chez ses voisins. Presses Interuniversitaires Européennes / Peter Lang (see above). Non-prolifération et sécurité series, No. 7. 2013, 427 pp. ISBN 978-2-87574-059-5.
The domain of information and communication in security and defence issues has always been and remains a complex and controversial subject. Edited by recognised political scientists, the main aim of this book is to analyse in a comparative and multidisciplinary manner the interface between the media on the one hand and national, European and Atlantic organisations involved in the common European defence and security policy and the Atlantic Alliance on the other. The study defines the communications policies of institutional and national players (foreign affairs and defence) and international players (the European Union and NATO),with the authors reviewing their aims, capabilities, techniques, message content and the way in which parliamentarians include the ESDP and NATO dimensions in debates, along with the way in which interaction with the media takes place. The empirical contributions to the book explain to an extent the various facets of this interaction. The final objective has been achieved, namely to formulate proposals and recommendations to try to improve the visibility of the European Security and Defence Policy and the Atlantic Alliance.
(SLa)