*** VICTORIA MARTÍN DE LA TORRE: Europe, a Leap into the Unknown. A Journey Back in Time to Meet the Founders of the European Union. 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 ). « Memories of an Evolving Europe / Mémoires de l'Europe en devenir » series, No. 5. 2014, 210 pp. €28.90. ISBN 978-2-87574-173-8.
There are books that have a taste from the very first to the last page and this is one of them. It is however, actually tackling an apparently austere subject, the birth of Community Europe. On first appearances, it is not one of the most attractive or seductive themes. But there you go, the talent of the author is such that the book is a real treat, finely crafted and reads like a novel, full of suspense. In it, we recognise the journalistic talent of Victoria Martín de la Torre. Without the crisis that hit her country and Europe as a whole, she may still be a journalist writing about European affairs for the weekly Tiempo publication. But once again, life would have it otherwise and it is at the European Parliament where she now works as a member of the press service for the Socialists and Democrats Group. In the meantime, she also had a career break to obtain a diploma at the European College in Bruges. It was during the era when “Convention members” were elaborating the draft constitutional project that the opportunity of providing Europe with a constitution or mentioning the “Christian roots” created an exchange of ideas in the corridors of the Bruges institution and when this author decided to write this book.
In it, she talks about Jean Monnet, the “dream seller”, Robert Schuman, the “tonsured minister”, Konrad Adenauer, the “old Chancellor”, Alcide De Gasperi, “ husband, father and leader” and Paul-Henri Spaak, “ a master on the political stage”. Why get so worked up about new biographies about people who have already been discussed at great length? Because these short biographies are in fact much more than biographies. After plunging into the most personal archives and having met people who knew them very closely, such as Antoinette Spaak and... Konrad Adenauer Jr, grandson of the German statesman, Victoria Martín de la Torre does not simply provide a cold trajectory of each of them, which is what Wikipedia is supposed to do, more or less. No, she makes them “come alive” in a certain way, sharing their feelings, their visions, their anger and sometimes their sadness. These are men of flesh and bone, who tell their stories, who have lived through their actions and it is this that has won them their place in history. In reality, as Victoria Martín de la Torre cleverly explains, she gives a voice to those she feels have even become friends. This is not all, beyond these living portraits, full of humanity, she also recounts each of the different events that preceded the moment when they became famous. Therefore, before talking to us about Monnet, she brings alive The Hague Congress of 1948, as if it took place yesterday, with her attending. It is if she is side-by-side with Salvador de Madariaga when he enters the Dutch capital, whose war wounds have not yet healed and she comes face-to-face with the figures of Denis de Rougemont and Hendrik Brugmans, cursing the Anglo-Saxon vision of Europe as purported by Churchill when she suddenly notices a smile appear on the face of Konrad Adenauer, when Churchill welcomes the German delegation. She also witnesses the conclusion of the Congress, the disappointment created and expressed by Spinelli … The author brings to life the event as if we were there! It is also true for the gestation period for the Schuman Declaration, the setting up of the European Community for Coal and Steel, the huge “ fiasco” of the European Defence Community and the action by Benelux countries to ensure a countermeasure that would result in the Treaties of Rome. All very passionate stuff!
This is also a contemporary book. In the preface, Javier Solana lucidly observes how the crisis has brought nationalistic and extremist political messages to the fore, demagogic appeals to turn inwards that we thought had been extinguished forever. The former High Representative for Foreign Policy and Secretary General of the Council believes that a new generation of founding fathers is needed to allow, “Young people to dream again”. Given that the “crisis has put us in front of the mirror” this political descendant of Salvador de Madariaga thinks it crucial that they rediscover, “a new dose of imagination and confidence in our values in order to launch an integration process again”, failing which, “the leap into the unknown” taken by Schuman risks bringing us back, once again, to the horrors of the past.
Michel Theys
*** ESTELLE POIDEVIN: L'Europe, une affaire intérieure ? Ce qui change en Europe. Éditions L'Harmattan (5-7 rue de l'École-Polytechnique, F-75005 Paris. Email: harmattan1@wanadoo.fr - Internet: http://www.harmattan.fr ). « Inter-National » series. 2014, 172 pp. €18. ISBN 978-2-343-03796-7.
Estelle Poidevin is a graduate from the Lille School of journalism and is eager to teach. It is true that the European Union really does need this because according to certain commentators (including those in the media) European citizens are unable to understand it. This explains the reason for this book and through which she is now working in communications at the European Parliament and where she seeks to clarify what the Union does, can do and what a number of its policies mean. Are we moving towards an enhanced sort of economic governance? What room for manoeuvre does the Union possess in the social arena? What is the European budget for and how is it structured and funded? Will it be appropriate in 2014, “to maintain the Common Agricultural Policy?” Is Europe's trade policy too naïve? These are some of the questions to which she seeks to provide a response, in view of clarifying the debate. Sometimes the responses are so detailed that it is not exactly certain that your average European citizen will be able to follow without getting a certain feeling of indigestion. At the end of each theme tackled, she also provides an external insight by way of an interview with a specialist, such as the economist Jocelyn Guitton (Sciences Po), who looks at the consequences of leaving the euro, as advocated by certain pundits, and who explains that this would lead to a number of repercussions such as the “ downfall of savers”. There is one criticism to be made, has the journalist forgotten that acronyms kill communication and the abuse of them even more so?
(MT)
*** GEORGE VOSKOPOULOS: L'Union européenne. Les institutions, les politiques, les défis, les problèmes. Éditions Epikentro (9 rue Kamvounion, GR-54621 Thessalonique. Tel: (30-231) 0256156 - fax: 0256148 - Email: books@epikentro.gr - Internet: http://www.epikentro.gr ). 2014, 349 pp. €24.46. ISBN 978-960458194-8.
Should the European Union be analysed as a distinct system of governance in the vast domain of political science? Politics and political activities can be analysed and considered as a way of governing through institutions and the process of governance setting out specific development priorities, such as what social objectives should be attained and what public services should be provided, etc. George Voskopoulos is a professor in the department of international and European studies at the Aristotle University of Salonika and in this book demonstrates that governance and exercising politics are to a certain extent synonyms. Politics, however, is defined as “science and the art of governance”, whereas its subject is “the form, organisation and administration of the state”. As for the European Union, it is mainly but not exclusively, the domain of comparative politics. In this perspective, the author analyses “the similarities and differences” of the different political systems based on principles and traditions that differ and demonstrate, through several examples, how the European institutions brand themselves and the challenges they have to face.
(AKa)
*** GIANNI BONVICINI (Editor): Il Parlamento europeo per la nuova Unione. Edizioni Nuova Cultura et Istituto Affari Internazionali (9 via Angelo Brunetti, I-00186 Rome. Internet: http://www.iai.it ). « Quaderni IAI - Nuova Serie », No. 9. 2014, 139 pp. €14.20. ISBN 978-88-6812-280-5.
Founded in 1965 on the initiative of Altiero Spinelli, who was its first director, the Institute of International Affairs, has always worked to promote knowledge about the world in which Italy exists. In this ninth issue of this new “Quaderni IAI” series, it is indeed its closest environment and itself that is examined because this publication focuses entirely on the European Parliament in the context of the European elections last May. Under the leadership of the deputy vice president of the Institute, the authors seek to describe strategies for relaunching European integration based on a more central and inspirational role played by the Parliamentary institution. The potential for a rapprochement between the European Parliament and the national parliaments is highlighted and the authors also agree on the fact that only a revision of the treaties would enable the European Union to get itself out of the crisis and the current management of this crisis by intergovernmental instruments.
(MT)
*** COSMIN GABRIEL MARIAN: Romanian Parliamentary Elections 1990-2012. Stability and Stir. 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 ). 2013, 136 pp. €31.95. ISBN 978-3-631-64782-0.
For almost half a century, Romania experienced a one party system. During the first genuinely democratic elections in 1990, the resuscitated traditional parties had a lot of difficulty getting into Parliament, which was also the case in 1992, although almost two out of three Romanians still decided to vote for the “Ancien regime”. It was not until the following elections (1993, 2000, 2004, 2008 and 2012) that a new political class was able to emerge. In this book, a university professor shows how, from the emergence of a handful of major parties appearing around 1990, the Romanian political system gradually stabilised and managed to reconstruct itself over these years, without any other political formation being able to upset the apple cart afterwards. The different general elections since then have been characterised by a significant amount of stability and even monotony.
(SLa)
*** YANNIS KOLIOPOULOS, KOSTAS CHATZIKONSTANTINOU, VASSILIS GOUNARIS (Editors): La coopération transfrontalière entre la Grèce et l'ARYM (Ancienne République Yougoslave de Macédoine) comme demande. Editions Epikentro (9 rue Kamvounion, GR-54621 Thessalonique. Tel: (30-231) 0256156 - fax: 0256148 - Email: books@epikentro.gr). 2014, 390 pp. €25.47. ISBN 978-960458175-7.
This publication results from a programme that sought to enhance cooperation between the two countries in a European context. It is collectively written and seeks to build on the cooperation that began between Greece and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and the relations established in their respective border zones. Edited by three university professors in modern history at the Philosophical School at the Aristotle University of Salonika, this study examines the legal dimensions of the bilateral disputes between Greece and this Former Yugoslav Republic over the name of “Macedonia” and analyses the state of bilateral relations between the two countries from 1991 up until the present day. Far from providing facile aphorisms, this book makes a scientific contribution to a better understanding of relations between these two countries, their differences, as well as what brings them together and the perspectives for broader cooperation in the future.
(AKa)
*** STAVROS LYGEROS: Le problème chypriote: la solution hérétique. Editions Patakis (38 P. Tsaldari, GR-10437 Athens. Tel: (30-210) 3650000 - fax: 3650069 - Email: press@patakis.gr - Internet: http://www.patakis.gr ). « Sciences sociales et politiques » series. 2014, 241pp. ISBN 978-960-16-5938-1.
Ten years after rejection of the Annan Plan by Greek Cypriots, the process seeking to impose an Annan type solution on Cyprus has been launched. As editorialist on the daily “Kathimerini” newspaper and author of three books on the Cypriots problem, Stavros Lygeros, proves this in his book and that this has been predictable since Nicosia missed the golden opportunity of capitalising on the huge “no” vote (76%) in 2004 by launching a revision strategy from scratch. According to the author, the negotiating framework known as the “bi-zonal federation” inevitably leads to Annan type plans, namely a singular and non-sustainable confederation. These projects create the illusion of reunification of Cyprus but would simply endorse control by Ankara in the north of the island and Turkish loans in the south.
(AKa)
*** PIOTR FORECKI: Reconstructing Memory: The Holocaust in Polish Public Debates. Peter Lang (1 Moosstrasse, P.O. Box 350, CH-2542 Pieterlen. Tel: (41-32) 3761717 - fax: 3761727 -Email: info@peterlang.com - http://www.peterlang.com ). « Geschichte Erinnerung Politik » series, No. 5. 2013, 288 pp. €54.95. ISBN 978-3-631-62365-7.
In this book, a member of the Jewish Historical Institute Association and a professor working at the Faculty of Political Science and Journalism at the University of Poznan seeks to reconstruct and analyse past Polish Jewish conflicts and the public debates in Poland between 1985 and 2012 on the subject. The analysis draws on the discussions provoked by the publication of the book, ”Shoah” by Claude Lanzmann, the essay by Jan B³onski “The Poor Poles Look at the Ghetto”, the book by Jan Tomasz Gross “Neighbours, Fear and Golden Harvest” and the controversy surrounding “The Aftermath” by W³adys³aw Pasikowski. One of the main achievements in the Polish political transition was the way in which public discourse was unblocked. Many questions on subjects had only been taken into account insignificantly, when they had not been ignored altogether or falsified. The theme of the Holocaust and the attitude of its Polish witnesses was one of the problems the Communist Poland did not mention, or at least did not do so honestly. During the last decade of the Communist system, the silence was broken by the Catholic press and the opposition but this was done so in a limited way. The analysis of this book focuses on the evolution and dynamic in these debates, particularly the variety of opinions that developed during this process.
(SLa)