*** STANISLAS ADAM, SAID HAMMAMOUN, ERWAN LANNON, JEAN-VICTOR LOUIS, NANETTE NEUWAHL, ERIC WHITE: L'Union européenne comme acteur international. Editions de l'Université de Bruxelles (26 av. Paul Héger, CP 163, B-1000 Brussels. Tel: (32-2) 6503789 - Fax: 6503794 - Email: editions@ulb.ac.be - Internet: http://www.editions-universite-bruxelles.be/ ). "Commentaire J. Mégret" series. 2015, 239 pp, €40. ISBN 978-2-8004-1578-9.
This entirely updated and reworked third edition of the Commentaire Jacques Mégret on the European Union's external relations covers highly topical issues. More than ever, what Jacques Delors described in his time as the 'unidentified political object' is asserting itself from various angles on the global stage, which forces its players, and people who have to come to terms with this European assertiveness, to do some legal and political acrobatics. Hence the great utility of this work in which eminent experts explain the complex leg al and political themes of the EU's international legal personality, its international rights and obligations, a consideration of the EU's role as an international player and member of international organisations, the EU's implementation of international agreements and, finally, the impact of said agreements on EU law.
It goes without saying that lawyers will take greater pleasure than anyone else from the fine analysis developed in these pages, but the authors' writing is so clear that anyone wishing to understand how the European Union acts and reacts as an international player can dip in without fear to, for example, an article by Stanislas Adam, public auditor at the European Court of Justice, written with leading European law specialist Jean-Victor Louis, emeritus professor at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, in which they brilliantly explain the various aspects of the legal personality that the Union has gradually acquired at international level and the attributes that arise from this, namely the establishment of diplomatic relations, international responsibility and the capacity to go to court. In conclusion, the two experts stress the extent to which the European community has managed in little over fifty years to 'make tangible in daily legal and diplomatic reality the principle of its international personality, laid by the founding fathers.” In their opinion, “the nature and extent of the sharing of sovereignty that arises from this with the Member States (…) fashion the traits of a unique phenomenon in international law,” the legitimacy of this sui generis player residing not only in the clarifications provided step by step by jurisprudence, “but also in the fidelity to the rules of international law that was manifested very early on by the European Court of Justice.” In this connection, Jean-Victor Louis and Stanislas Adam also point out that over time, the court in Luxembourg has managed to affirm “laws or principles to which even the rules of public international law that bind the Union would not be able to derogate,” and this has consolidated the autonomy of the legal order established by the treaties, along with the “essential values” upon which the European Union is based, “namely democracy, the rule of law and fundamental rights.” Against this backdrop, the Lisbon Treaty was a new step forwards, giving the Union unique legal personality, but this doesn't prevent “frequent obstacles from remaining when it comes to the emergence of a genuine political union in external action,” be it the inability of economic and monetary union to speak with a single voice in international bodies or, worse, the intergovernmental shortcomings that the Common Foreign and Security Policy suffers from.
This is a rapid skimming over barely one of the five chapters that make up this book, but is enough to say that other lessons are to be gleaned from its pages. This applies, for instance, to the contribution that Prof. Erwan Lannon of College of Europe and Ghent University devotes to the Union as an international player and member of international organisations, in which he first states that “the founding fathers would certainly be impressed by the accomplished building,” to such an extent that some these days even see the European Union as a “model.” In order to achieve this, however, it was necessary to make “plenty of compromises that have not always helped boost the coherence of the Union's external action,” in a domain that is clearly very complex but the 'differentiated integration” that is now in the news runs the risk of an “over-fragmentation of approaches.” Finally, this teacher also observes that “the action of the new High Representative will be decisive” for giving credibility to the European External Action Service. This cannot be denied and in this connection, how can one fail to recognise the wise nature of Ms Mogherini's decision to set up shop in the Berlaymont building rather than in the shadow of the Council and the countries that are so busy there?
Michel Theys
*** PIERRE DIDIER, MICHAEL HAHN, HERVE PRINCE, CATHERINE SCHMITTER, ALEXANDRE THILLIER: Politique commerciale commune. Editions de l'Université de Bruxelles (see above). Commentaire J. Mégret series. 2014, 271 pp, €45. ISBN 978-2-8004-1553-6.
In this book which is now in its third edition, the European Union's trade policy is outlined by university experts and leading practitioners. In the foreword, Jacques Bourgeois, professor at the College of Europe who edited the big Economic and Social Policy subject matter in the collection founded by Jacques Mégret, points out that this common policy developed in two phases. Initially, the European Court of Justice gave the notion a very broad scope, and then the European 'constituent' took over in the form of the Intergovernmental Conferences that led to the Amsterdam, Nice and, in fine, Lisbon Treaties, the latter hallowing the extension of the notion of trade policy to services, the trade aspects of intellectual property rights and also to foreign direct investment. The authors of the first part of the book make an analysis of the general aspects of the common trade policy. In the second part, the various instruments that the European Union has given itself in this connection are detailed, from common import and export systems to exemptions to these systems via anti-dumping and anti-subsidy regulations.
(PBo)
*** CARL BAUDENBACHER, PHILIPP SPEITLER, BRYNDIS PALMARSDOTTIR (Ed.): The EEA and the EFTA Court. Decentred Integration. Hart Publishing (16C Worcester Place, Oxford, OX1 2JW UK. Tel: (44-1865) 517530 - Fax: 510710 - Email: mail@hartpub.co.uk - Internet: http://www.hartpub.co.uk ). 2014, 572 pp, £75. ISBN 978-1-849-466264.
To celebrate the twentieth anniversary last year of the European Economic Area and European Free Trade Association Court of Justice, its president, Carl Baudenbacher, legal secretary Philipp Speitler, and high-ranking official, Bryndís Pálmarsdóttir, gathered in this book a range of contributions shedding light on the role played by the court in the context of the European Economic Area. Its jurisdiction covers the three European continent countries in the European Free Trade Association (Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway), whereas EU member states are covered, of course, by the European Court of Justice. The topics examined in the book include the way the two courts have contributed to the development of this single market at continental level, how justice is accessed in this context, its decentred integration, the principles and fundamental rights at play in the European Economic Area, the trade and economic law that applies there and the players found there. Three lecturers finally cast an outsider's eye over this aspect of Europe, with Takao Suami (Waseda School of Law in Tokyo) looking at the 'Myth of Supranational Law and Its Implications for International Law.' The book is very comprehensive, but is lacking an introduction and a summing up that would help the reader to gain an overview. Moreover, the fourteen contents pages do not really help one get a rapid glimpse of the book's overall structure.
(HHe)
*** Futuribles. L'anticipation au service de l'action. Futuribles Sarl (47 rue de Babylone, F-75007 Paris. Tel: (33-1) 53633770 - Fax: 42226554 - Email: revue@futuribles.com - Internet: http://www.futuribles.com ). March-April 2015, No. 405, 120 pp, €22. Annual subscription: €115. ISBN 978-2-84387-418-5.
This issue of the future prospects review that is an authority in the French language has a former European official, Jean-François Drevet, again ask whether the European Union is 'under siege.' One might almost think so as, twenty-five years after the end of the Cold War, the EU finds itself facing direct threats at its borders. The measures taken to ensure the security of Europeans seem to the author to be 'insufficient (in Syria), unsuitable (in Libya) and tardy (in Ukraine),' but 'around the rim of the crisis there is the risk of a convergence of conflicts through a rapprochement of hostile powers, and the premises of this can be observed between Russia and Turkey.' In the Mediterranean and Africa, the European Union is finding it difficult to 'get a little European music heard,' the Cypriot problem providing proof because it is 'unable to find a solution to a domestic problem of one of its Member States, which disqualifies it from acting elsewhere, for example in border conflicts of the former USSR.' The EU28 would do well, he says, to make a move at the United Nations, aware that there exists 'today, on either side of the green line, a majority of Cypriots in favour of reunification' of the island within the framework of the European Union. Even if this is not what Turkey desires? Then 'both sides are demonstrating bad faith,' and does it make any sense to stick to the ever more hypothetical scenario of Turkey joining the EU? No, according to Jean-François Drevet, who says that 'as long as the supreme power in Turkey is held by a disciple of the Muslim Brotherhood and Ankara is the victim of a sectarian religious slippage in its foreign policy, used to serve neo-Ottoman and pan-Sunni objectives that are pretty foreign to Europe, then it has not been proved that the EU has any interest in re-launching the negotiations.' He says it would therefore be necessary to seek other areas of cooperation with Turkey and, alongside this, to demonstrate greater firmness vis-à-vis Russia. These elements lead him to call for the ambitions displayed by Europe in the Lisbon Treaty in terms of foreign, diplomacy and defence policy to be made tangible by governments in the light of the now perceptible threats, rather than 'advancing in slow senator steps as if they had all the time in the world.' He concludes that the Commission should 'accept its responsibilities,' commenting that the Barroso decade 'showed that the Commission had better things to do than to restrict itself to a subordinate role of secretariat to the Council'…
(MT)
*** HARTMUT MÜLLER (Ed.): TRIFT / Transfer of Innovation into the Field of Foreign Trade. Project Results. Peter Lang (1 Moosstrasse, Postfach 350, CH-2542 Pieterlen. Tel: (41-32) 3761717 - Fax: 3761727 - Email: info@peterlang.com - Internet: http://www.peterlang.com ). 2013, 165 pp, €29.95. ISBN 978-3-631-62867-6.
The Transfer of Innovation into the Field of Foreign Trade (TRIFT) project was developed under the Leonardo da Vinci programme, backed by the European Commission and coordinated by Cologne's European regional government programme from 2010 to 2012. In order to respond to urgent demand for a system of transparency and comparison for apprenticeship and foreign trade exchange programmes among EU member states, the participating researchers drew up a skills table that can be used to describe the abilities of individuals, educational programmes and the needs of companies. The table was tested using foreign trade courses in which participants were assessed using tools specially drawn up based on the table to evaluate the skills they acquired during the training programme and jointly validated by different member states. This publication provides articles on the theoretical background and the project's working process, along with documentation about the results - the skills table, skill profiles for the training programme in five countries, e-portfolio assessment documents and valuations.
(CDe)
*** MARIA MANUELA TAVARES RIBEIRO, MARIA FERNANDA ROLLO, ISABEL MARIA FREITAS VALENTE, ALICE CUNHA (Eds.): Pela paz ! For peace! Pour la paix ! (1849-1939). 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 ). Euroclio series, No. 85. 2014, 389 pp, €48.20. ISBN 978-2-87574-204-9.
This book follows on from a conference organised in 2013 by the Interdisciplinary Twentieth Century Studies Institute of Coimbra University and the Institute of Contemporary History at the Social and Human Sciences Faculty of the New University of Lisbon. The four editors have gathered together twenty-four articles by experts and young researchers in English, French or Portuguese. The documents help readers gain greater understanding of concepts, programmes, movements, speeches, images, representations and key figures relating to the subject of peace from 1849 to 1939. From the Belle Epoque to federalism and Proudhon's universalism via Tolstoy's influence on universal pacifism and peace initiatives during the Great War, impassioned pacifists will find material to enrich their knowledge. The book does not address peace chronologically or exhaustively, as the authors seek rather to deepen knowledge of various aspects of this ideal that is so difficult to implement. An understanding of Portuguese is highly recommended because more than half of the articles are written in the language.
(HHe)