*** LUC BERNIER (Editor): Public Enterprises Today: Missions, Performance and Governance / Les entreprises publiques aujourd'hui: missions, performance, gouvernance. Learning from Fifteen Cases / Leçons de quinze études de cas. 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 ). "Social Economy & Public Economic" series, No. 5. 2015, 526 pp. €55.60. ISBN 978-2-87574-224-7.
At the beginning of this economically stormy debut of the century, are public enterprises just a hangover from a past from which a few examples have been left out of the privatisation programmes that have formed the legal touchstone over these past three decades? In his preface to this book, Jacques Fournier provides both a confident and enthusiastic response and explains that this particular kind of "plant remains healthy and will undoubtedly diversify and enrich the 'garden of the economy'". Obviously, some commentators will find his ideas suspect. After all, is he not the honorary president of the SNCF, one of the flagship public enterprises in France? Nonetheless, Jacques Fournier is also the president of the International Centre of Research and Information on the Public and Cooperative Economy (CIRIEC), which has in fact helped the 30 scientists contributing to this publication carry out a comprehensive study of this situation and the future prospects for public enterprises. It should be made clear that Fournier's claim appears to be pretty much watertight in so far as the studies in this book confirm the potential that has been recovered by these kinds of enterprises, following a political and economic phase in history where "neoliberalism" became the "incontrovertible truth" by erecting its dogma of the "intrinsic superiority of private management" and subsequently cultivating, "a permanent suspicion of violating the rules of competition" in the European Union and its accompanying and frenzied cult of privatisation.
The case studies included in this book focus on public enterprises in nine European and American countries. Some of them are efficient, whilst others are less so. They provide services in a variety of different sectors such as water, electricity, finance, real estate infrastructure, air transport, local and maritime services, postal services and engineering etc. The studies illustrate the different experiences in these areas, as well as the way in which these companies managed to adapt to their respective environments that are constantly changing. How can their missions to provide services of general interest and specific public services be ensured in this context? Is it possible to ensure that the missions to provide services of general interest and public services are maintained and if so, how is this done? How are the leaders of these enterprises currently appointed and paid? What is or what should be, depending on the precise case in point, the pricing strategies for these public enterprises at the beginning of the century? These are some of the questions at the centre of the studies included in this publication.
The book is divided into three sections, according to the specific industry. In the first part, five chapters look at the public enterprises working in water and water purification services in a number of cities such as Berlin and Paris (where we have witnessed a return to the state of the sector with two cases of renationalisation), as well as Milan and in Sweden, as well as a case in Peru. Throughout these studies we see the need to provide basic services to the people but this cannot be guaranteed in advance because, as explained by Professor Luc Bernier in his conclusions, "even in Paris, families still have to get water from public water fountains". The second part contains examples from the transport domain, such as public transport in Brussels and Vienna, as well as the important role played by airports in Ireland and, even more surprising although no less instructive, the case of the public ferries in British Columbia, on the west coast of Canada. The last part of the book includes contributions by authors examining enterprises such as the French Post Office and the Milan energy company in Italy, which have had to demonstrate great creativity and malleability in order to survive and resist in a permanently shifting environment. All the different contributions included in the book encourage the publication's editor, a Professor at the Ecole nationale d'administration publique and President of the International Scientific Council at the Ciriec, until recently, to confirm that public enterprises include, "interesting elements that help to provide arguments against the advocates of privatisation". Even though, as acknowledged by Professor Bernier, other studies will be required to confirm this …
Michel Theys
*** MURIEL LE ROUX (Editors): Post Offices of Europe. 18th-21st Century - A Comparative History. Presses Interuniversitaires Européennes / Peter Lang (see address attached). "History of Post Offices and Communications - Exchanges and Territories" series, No. 1. 2014, 571 pp. €66.30. ISBN 978-2-87574-178-3.
The authors of this book do not exactly go back to the cursus publicus or "public way" that connected the Roman Empire to its most far-flung corners. The book stems from an international conference held in Paris more than 10 years ago and does, nonetheless, outline the areas covered by postal services in Europe since the 18th century. In a parallel development, all the different stages and modalities of expansion on the railways, maritime and air transport are also covered right up to the liberalisation process of the 1990s within Community Europe. The contributions focus on the different periods and specificities in France and Germany from the beginning of the 19th century, as well as in Italy, Spain, Hungary, Great Britain and Denmark, in addition to Russia and Canada. There is also a focus on the extension of post offices' remit to banking and financial services, as well as the impact of the European Commission imposed liberalisation process, which, according to the historian who coordinated the conference and edited the book, did not produce a single model because the respective situation and national heritage in each country was more conducive to maintaining a certain diversity. Muriel Le Roux also believes that it is too early to tell whether the European postal services, with the particular place they occupy in the collective memory of each country, will succeed in successfully shifting from a, "culture of infrastructure to a culture of service".
(PBo)
*** CHARLES BARTHEL, IVAN KHARABA, PHILIPPE MIOCHE (Editors): Les mutations de la sidérurgie mondiale du XXe siècle à nos jours / The Transformation of the World Steel Industry from the XXth Century to the Present. Presses Interuniversitaires Européennes / Peter Lang (see address attached). « L'Europe et les Europes (19th and 20th centuries) », No. 11. 2014, 532 pp. €61. ISBN 978-2-87574-148-6.
This collectively written book was published in a series that has been overseen by the International Association of European Contemporary History. It stems from two scientific meetings and according to its editors, it seeks to address the historiographical shortfall by drawing up a balance sheet of the profound changes that have occurred in the European steel industry during the 20th century. It begins with a similar approach to the issue of the steel industry at an international level. In the history of humanity, there has never been as much steel produced as is currently the case, with global production having increased by 23% between 1914 and 2012. Nonetheless, the geography of steel production has changed profoundly and has been accompanied by a transformation in those who are actually producing the steel. This has seen a number of foreign steel producers quickly becoming dominant in Europe, such as Mittal steel from India. At the same time, technological transformations have changed the steel industry from a highly labour-intensive sector into a much more automated one, with obvious social repercussions. All these huge changes mean that the steel industry barely resembles that of the second industrial age of which it became the symbol and even the constitutive part of European construction. All the different contributions in this book help clarify these changes and which, according to Charles Barthel (European Study and Research Centre Robert Schuman), Ivan Kharaba (Académie François Bourdon in Creusot) and Philippe Mioche (Université d'Aix-Marseille), the work carried out by the historians could, "help to usefully inform" decision-makers at a time when, for example, the Commission has become aware, with its 2013 Action Plan for a Competitive and Sustainable Steel Industry, "of the specificities of the steel industry in the Union". The book is divided into different parts, with one focusing on the European steel industry (with a look at state intervention, the size of the different companies, efforts to innovate and diversify, new strategies, free trade and cartels) and the other focusing on the massive changes that have taken place at an international level.
(MT)
*** European View. Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies (Springer Customer Service Center, 7 Haberstrasse, D-69126 Heidelberg. Tel: (49-6221) 3454303 - Email: subscriptions@springer.com - Internet: http://www.springer.com ). 2014, No. 13, 344 pp.
This publication is close to the European People's Party and in this edition looks at the current economic challenges and political extremism these have created and which appear to resemble those of the foreboding 1930s. Other contributions focus on Central and Eastern Europe in transition, the situation in Syria, what line to take on Putin's Russia, Islamic terrorism in the Sahel etc.
(MT)
*** KERSTIN PEGLOW, GERALDINE DEMME (Editors): La protection des intérêts privés sur le marché intérieur. La situation des consommateurs et entrepreneurs. Peter Lang (1 Moosstrasse, Postfach 350, CH-2542 Pieterlen. Tel: (41-32) 3761717 - fax: 3761727 - Email: info@peterlang.com - Internet: http://www.peterlang.com ). « Cultures juridiques et politiques » series, No.6. 2015, 191 pp. €57.70. ISBN 978-3-0343-1615-6 .
Enterprise and consumers are the key actors in the European Union's market without borders. This explains the importance there is in the thrust of the European institutions to ensure their well-being. Measures have been adopted for a long time to promote the ability of companies in the internal market and ensure their legal security once they dare to make their move outside their own national borders. Since the 1990s, significant efforts have also been made to make citizens into confident consumers who know about their rights. A number of these different measures adopted to this dual purpose have been gauged by the legal specialists contributing to this book, which stems from a study day organised by the leading lights of the integrated Franco-German legal sciences course at the University of Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense. With regard to the question of enterprise, Kerstin Peglow subsequently demonstrates, for example, that efforts still need to be made in the field of European derived law so that they can ultimately overcome any legal uncertainties that remain. Another contribution examine the attributed clause of jurisdiction in the event of litigation in economic activities abroad, whilst Géraldine Demme looks at the question of compensation for competition damages in light of, "group action" now allowed in France. She regrets, however, that this procedure is open to consumers but not to professionals, who can also be the victims of a practice that may require the setting up of an appropriate group. In the realm of consumers, Stéphanie Rohlfing-Dijoux compares German, French and European rights to information, which is indispensable if they are going to be fully aware actors in this area. She concludes that the mechanism elaborated to this end is now both complete and comprehensive to the point that there may even be too much information in which consumers could find themselves drowning. Steffen Paulmann looks at the provisions for tackling the abusive contractual clauses concluded with consumers and which the German legislator has extended to contractual relations between professionals. The final contribution looks at the particularly complex issue of maintaining personal data and the right to forget.
(PBo)
*** NORMAN KONECNY: Der Verordnungsentwurf über ein Gemeinsames Europäisches Kaufrecht. Meilenstein der europäischen Integration oder Irrlicht der europäischen Politik ? 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 ). "Saarbrücker Studien zum Privat- und Wirtschaftsrecht" series. 2014, 336 pp. €71;95. ISBN 978-3-631-65336-7.
In his thesis, Norman Konecny provides an analysis of the European level unification areas of the law applied to sales. He also looks at the barriers to unification in this branch of the law, as well as procedural issues and its general context. To achieve his aim, the author looks at the question of whether the European authorities are prepared to reduce the norms applying to consumer protection which, according to him, are one of the major obstacles to unification in sales law. Norman Konecny also argues that if the unification of this branch of law does take place, it will have positive repercussions not only at an economic level but also symbolically and will significantly contribute to a shift towards the unification of standards in the area of private law at a European level and significantly enhance the feeling of Europeans belonging to a common area.
(GLe)
*** ALEXANDER BLUHM: Die Anwendbarkeit und Auswirkungen der EU-Dienstleistungsrichtlinie auf Auswahl und Bestellung des Insolvenzverwalters. Peter Lang (see address attached). "Schriftenreihe des Centrum für Deutsches und Europäisches Insolvenzrecht" series. 2015, 330 pp. €69.95. ISBN 978-3-631-64676-2.
Does German law only regulate the choice of the Receiver/Official Liquidator in a rudimentary way in asset regulation procedures? Moreover, the very substance of this law, and its rudimentary nature and the fact that it has not been completed by positive aspects creates a number of compatibility problems with corresponding standards in European law, particularly with regard to the European directive on services that entered into force in 2006. In this thesis Alexander Bluhm analyses the different problem areas in German law, points that will probably have to be changed in the future. He also keeps a close eye on the aims of the European legislator and the general context of constructing an economic area that is coherent at a European level.
(GLe)