*** MARK FREEDLAND, JEREMIAS PRASSL (Editors): Viking, Laval and Beyond. Hart Publishing (16C Worcester Place, Oxford, OX1 42JW, UK. Tel: (44-1865) 517530 - fax: 510710 - Email: mail@hartpub.co.uk - Internet: http://www.hartpub.co.uk ). "EU Law in the Member States" series, No.1. 2014, 371 pp. £60. ISBN 978-1-84946-624-0.
This book is the first book to be published in a new series. This is important in itself and this book, no less so. The "EU law in the member states" series stems from the academic observation that European law does not naturally descend from some sort of Brussels-Luxembourg Olympus. As opposed to what we are led to believe and what some would wish, in addition to the doctrines purporting to the direct effect of this law in member states and its primacy over national law, Mark Freedland and Jeremias Prassl explain very early on that there is in fact a "complex world" of non-implementation into Union law. This only exists by making the latter less homogenous than it should be, insofar as the legislators and judges at a national level in charge of it, carry out their transposition exercise and shape it in practice. This explains the huge interest there is in this new series, which seeks to verify the way in which member states and their respective jurisdictions help confirm this European law or sometimes actually distort or indeed negate it.
This pioneering book is uniquely important in itself because it delivers an extremely robust scientific thrust into two of the most controversial European politico-legal dossiers in the history of European construction. It stems from a workshop organised at St John's College Oxford and focuses on the ramifications of the two European Court of Justice rulings and, as quite rightly summed up by the book's editors in their introduction, the difficult relationship between economic freedoms enshrined in Articles 49 and 56 of the Treaty on the functioning of the European Union and the right of workers to carry out collective action. The Viking decision (based on the name of the Finnish ferry operator that wanted to fly the Estonian flag in order to reduce the cost of his crews, which led to the threat of union action) and the Laval ruling (named after the Latvian construction company whose activities in Sweden were blocked by trade union action following its refusal to allow workers benefit from identical working conditions as those enjoyed by Swedish workers), which have been copiously written about on other occasions but which in this publication provide an extremely fruitful contribution. It helps identify the way in which these decisions were made and interpreted by the courts in other member states and how they also influenced the relationship between social partners. With the hindsight obtained since the publication of these decisions, the authors are able to proceed to an evaluation based on concrete cases in Germany, Austria, Estonia, Greece, Italy, Poland, the United Kingdom and Sweden, as well as in Norway as a member of the European Economic Area. The different "national" contributions are structured in exactly the same way and in turn describe the industrial relations in the respective country as well as the legal framework and subsequently present the possible legislative, legal and social ramifications of these two rulings. The general image that results from this exercise is that there has been a very impressive heterogeneous diversity of repercussions in the different countries …
These national perspectives are further developed through contributions locating the issue at a European Union Level or tracing the horizontal perspectives. Among the former, Steve Weatherill analyses the assertion according to which the European treaties place economic freedoms above fundamental rights. He points out that the European Court of Justice is increasingly receptive to barriers to free movement, which the member states decree for valid reasons, which does not, however, in his view, mitigate the damages caused by the two legal rulings. One of his colleagues at Oxford, Professor Alan Bogg, goes even further and points out that European law is "fundamentally irreconcilable" with the standards stipulated by the International Labour Organisation, for which, for example, there is the right to strike, apart from according a high degree of autonomy in labour law within the exclusive preserve of member states. Vilija Velyvyte looks at the dialogue on the right to strike theme that will develop between the European Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights once the Union has become a member of the Convention and predicts that the judges in Luxembourg will fight fiercely to defend the autonomy of the Union's law. Finally, a final contribution focuses on the Union in the context of the Monti Regulation II that did not come to fruition and with which the Commission attempted to proceed to a subtle reconfiguration of the subsidiarity principle and provide a considerable margin of manoeuvre that was much more generous for the national courts in cases where social rights are involved. Among the broad horizontal perspectives included in this book, we can mention those outlined by Nicola Countouris and Samuel Engblom in view of, "civilising the European Directive on posted workers" as a means of countering the manoeuvres of cross-border operators and who have become the spearhead in the exporting of social dumping. To this effect, they suggest that the European legislator distinguishes itself from the principle of the country of country of origin to ensure the primacy of rules on equal treatment, in respect of European construction and the commercial field, as well as with regard to respect for human dignity.
Michel Theys
*** MIROSLAWA MYSZKE-NOWAKOWSKA: The Role of Choice of Law Rules in Shaping Free Movement of Companies. Intersentia (31 Groenstraat, B-2640 Mortsel. Tel: (32-3) 6801550 - fax: 6587121 - Email: mail@intersentia.be - Internet: http://www.intersentia.be ). 2014, 291 pp. €75, £105, $71. ISBN 978-1-78068-201-3
This book is the result of a Ph.D. thesis on the choice of national legislation in the free movement of enterprise. The author is a graduate of the University of Antwerp and she seeks to measure the impact of this phenomenon by examining the minutiae of the European Court of Justice's most recent case law, the current state of legislation and doctrine. At the same time, she also looks at how European company law is influenced by international law and the fact that in several domains the latter has become subject to a process of Europeanisation. Her work is based on a practical presentation of case law and the differences between the transfer, on the one part, of a company's true place of business and the transfer of its head office, on the other. The book also touches on a number of debates and legal problems that are likely to be of great interest to legal specialists.
(CDe)
*** PHILIPP RABEN: Das Modellgesetz als geeignetes Instrument europäischer Vertragsrechtsharmonisierung. 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. 2015, 283 pp. €69.95. ISBN 978-3-631-65727-0.
In this thesis, Philipp Raben raises the question of whether specific types of law can help contribute to the harmonisation of contract law in Europe. After having provided an exhaustive definition of the concepts used, the author responds by drawing on a number of model standards elaborated by the legal practitioners at DCFR (Draft common Frame of Reference) and on this basis deduces that although they can contribute to the harmonisation of contract law in a certain way, they themselves contain a number of shortcomings that would need to be rectified in the harmonisation process.
(GLe)
*** HELENA BARANCOVA: Employment Conditions of Business in Slovakia. Peter Lang (see address attached). « Spectrum Slovakia Series », No. 5. 2013, 223 pp. €54.95. ISBN 978-3-631-65001-1.
The mobility of workers and services creates a complex environment for employers and entrepreneurs when developing their activities abroad. In this process, whilst taking into account the international trade context, the relationship of labour law in the host country becomes an essential factor. This is also important for foreign entrepreneurs who are developing (or want to develop) their business on the territory of the Slovak Republic. This book is aimed at them and its author looks at the prevailing situation in this open economy of a country that became a member of the European Union in 2004 and which has placed a lot of importance on foreign investment to ensure its development. In practical terms, this book has been conceived as a guide to best practice in establishing labour relations in the Slovak Republic. Helena Barancova sheds light on labour law provisions that currently prevail in this country and seeks to warn them about the difficulties and protect them against some of the mistakes that could occur and could provoke many different sanctions. She also describes the legal arena in which these employers can or will be able to operate.
(CDe)
*** VERA GLASSNER: The Transnationalisation of Collective Bargaining. Approaches of European Trade Unions. 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 ). « Work & Society » series, No. 78. 2014, 289 pp. €43.30. ISBN 978-2-87574-167-7.
Vera Glassner is a sociologist now working at the Department of Economic and Organisational Sociology at the University of Linz. She previously worked as a researcher at the European Trade Union Institute, in Brussels. In this book she provides a scientific analysis of the way in which collective bargaining and the social dialogue are being Europeanised by the European and national trade unions since the creation of European Monetary Union at the beginning of the 1990s. In different ways, this has inspired social actors to take action together at a European level. After providing a theoretical and very comprehensive framework, she looks at the way in which things have occurred in the different industrial sectors, such as the metal sector and cleaning industry, chemicals and banking, as well as the food and drinks industry, telecommunications and construction. One of the conclusions she draws is that transnational coordination of trade union activities has remained rather limited in a number of different areas, particularly because of the limited resources in terms of financial and human capital.
(PBo)
*** JÜRGEN BACKHAUS (Editor): Essential of Fiscal Sociology. Conception of an encyclopaedia. Peter Lang (see address attached).“Finanzsoziologie » series, No. 5. 2013, 475 pp. €79.95. ISBN 978-3-631-61522-5.
Fiscal sociology questions the fundamental relations between taxes, the state and society. This discipline borders several others, namely sociology, anthropology, political science, tax law, regional planning, social geography, political economy and local economy. Over recent years, it has produced a flourishing array of scientific books, as proved by this book, which is the result of a compilation of the most important contributions over the past four years at the annual conference organised by the Krupp Foundation in Public Finances and Fiscal Sociology at the University of Erfurt, in Germany. Jürgen Backhaus, the head of the Foundation and book's editor proposes a discussion on the encyclopaedic project on the subject during the next annual meeting. The 20 or so articles contained in this compilation have been written by European experts, as well as a number from the US and Russia. They tackle a range of subjects ranging from the history of fiscal sociology and the questions the subject currently provokes in light of the current budgetary austerity.
(CDe)
*** MARC DE VOS, PHILIPPE CULLIFORD (Editor): Gender quotas for Company Boards. Intersentia (see address attached). 2014, 208 pp. €60, £57, $72. ISBN 978-1-78068-229-7.
The question of compulsory quotas of women on the boards of directors has become a key point in policies that seek to promote gender diversity on the labour market. The Western world is at the epicentre of this phenomenon. In the European Union, gender equality has for a long time been imposed as an important principle in a variety of directives, to the extent that compulsory quotas are now being envisaged. Nonetheless, the principle of imposed parity is also a controversial subject. Although it appears in many different regards to be a gauge of improved governance, some quarters believe that its imposition is perhaps not compatible with anti-discriminatory laws based on fairness and individual merit rather than those of a group. Tension therefore exists and persists in this arena, which go beyond the European Union. The authors of this book analyses the European proposal and provide a critical assessment of the experiences in different countries that have, to varying degrees, made parity on the boards of directors official.
(CDe)
*** Dokumente / Documents. Zeitschrift für den deutsch-französischen Dialog / Revue du dialogue franco-allemand. Verlag Dokumente (86 Dottendorfer Strasse, D-53129 Bonn. Tel: (49-228) 92129365 - fax: 690385 - Email: aboservice@dokumente-documents.info - Internet: http://www.dokumente-documents.info ). 2014, No.4, 120 pp. €7. Subscription: €19.90.
This publication contains a very interesting feature article on the persisting prejudices between the German and French people. This issue of the review on Franco-German dialogue was founded in 1945 by French resistance fighter and co-founder Jean du Rivau and looks at the current situation in Germany. Editor in Chief, Gérard Foussier's article is on the subject of “And if Germany were in Crisis”, in the context of a book by Olaf Gersemann, which points out that the, “contemporaries of Goethe were on average poorer than those of Luther”, three centuries earlier …
(MT)