*** JAN VAN DER HARST, GERRIT VOERMAN (Editors): An Impossible Job? - The Presidents of the European Commission, 1958-2014. John Harper Publishing (27 Palace Gates Road, London N22 7BW, UK. Tel: (44-1767) 604951 - Email: custserv@turpin-distribution.com - Internet: http://www.johnharperpublishing.co.uk ). 2015, 312 pp. €29, £20. ISBN 978-0-9571501-6-4.
This book was written by renowned historians and focuses entirely on the position held by the European Commission during the integration process over the past 50 years, particularly the role played in this adventure by the successive presidents of this institution. In the introduction that sets the scene in a way that is both robust and meticulous, the Dutch journalist, Jan Werts, quite rightly points out that the European (economic) Commission was brought to life by the Treaties of Rome and subsequently became an indispensable actor in European construction but that it was also, above all, the symbol of an important backsliding in the relationship to the decision-making power and independence that the six founding countries of the European Community of Coal and Steel conceded at the beginning of the 1950s to the High Authority originally presided over by none other than Jean Monnet. The entire history of European construction can be rediscovered in these pages by way of the legacy bequeathed by each of the Presidents of the Commission, which also highlights the tension between the supranational and inter-governmental approaches that have continually impacted on the course taken by the route towards European integration.
Is it for this reason that the jovial Roy Jenkins, the only British person to have ever been president of the Berlaymont institution, to say that this task was actually "impossible"? In any case, judging by the evidence of the major problems encountered and which led to his departure from Brussels, that the France of General de Gaulle conferred on the pioneer Walter Hallstein, a close associate of Konrad Adenauer and who had the unfortunate idea to venture, explains Jan Werts, into the, "idealistic exploration of the ground for a future federal Europe based on supranational political integration, with the Commission as an embryonic European government". Looking at the gallery of portraits that followed, it clearly looks like the allergies experienced by Gaullist France to anything that could encroach on national sovereignty soon led to contaminate other camembert states, with Britain being the first of them, given that the residents of number 10 Downing Street have distinguished themselves for being noted in their anti-federalist crusade and for taking the scalps of two Belgian Prime Ministers that sought to head the Commission. They are not included among the sketches provided in these vibrant pages, except for Hallstein and Jenkins and the Belgian Jean Rey, fighting for the camp of, "Europe whenever possible", Franco Maria Malfatti, who would ultimately abandon Europe to return to the political terrain of Italy, Sicco Mansholt, from the Netherlands, who is often forgotten, except for the fact that he finished his mandate as the perceived father of "green Europe", the moderate Gaullist, François-Xavier Ortoli, the translucent figure from Luxembourg, Gaston Thorn, to Jacques Delors from France, who ultimately allowed Europe to breathe through its golden age by drawing on presidencies of Mitterrand and Kohl, to the clearly less influential Jacques Santer and Romano Prodi and the two Commissions finally presided by the "cautious reformer" that José Manuel Barroso sought to be.
In the conclusions that they draw, the editors of this book - Jan van der Harst (a professor of history and the theory of European integration at the University of Groningen) and Gerrit Voerman (who worked as Director of the Documentation Centre Dutch Political Parties) reveal that the most important treaties were signed or implemented under the most lengthy presidencies (Hallstein, Delors and Barroso), for which France and Germany were consistently the "kingmakers" in Brussels because they had learned long before that they would have to strike a deal with the decision-makers in London. They were, subsequently, far more constructive, alongside the unstoppable parlementarisation of which Jean-Claude Juncker is the current embodiment. They also look at the profiles of the different presidents, the weight they exerted due to their nationalities in the choices they made, their political affiliations and their respective competences (particularly in a linguistic perspective). They conclude by analysing the gradual presidentialisation of the Commission in which Jacques Delors had undoubtedly played a role in this evolution, owing to his own personal authority. Piers Ludlow points out in this connection that in the portrait he paints of Chancellor Kohl it was Delors in person and not the Commission that took charge of managing an important dossier. This is a paradoxical observation because at the same time, Delors was from 1981 onwards, the only President of the Commission not to have been a member of the European Council, despite it having been the latter that decided on the rule to only choose those that had attended it. Is there any room for complaint in this connection with the Junker case? Undoubtedly not, at least if he manages to stand fast against the person now at the head of the European Council and this new political creation that has obviously, "complicated the position of Commission President even further".
Michel Theys
*** OLGA GIOTI-PAPADAKI: L'intégration politique européenne et les politiques de solidarité. Editions Kritiki (4 rue Papadiamantopoulou, GR-11528 Athens. Tel: (30-210) 8211812 - fax: 8211026 - Email: biblia@kritiki.gr - Internet: http://www.kritiki.gr ). 2015, 368 pp. €21.99. ISBN 978-960-586-035-6.
The European Union is a transnational system of government in which sovereignty is shared between member states and supranational institutions. The relationship between these and the member states continues to vary over time due to the fluctuating way in which the different member states accept the European body that sometimes leaves them with the impression that they are being browbeaten, in addition to the rather substantial support of the people of Europe for the integration process. Olga Gioti-Papadaki has held the Jean Monet Chair at the Department of Economic and Regional Development at Pantheon University in Athens since 1997. In this book she explains that the process is also the result of an increasing and continual interdependency observed since the 1950s. Despite the obvious differences between the different member states and the fact that the Union's powers remain limited, the member states have, nonetheless, transferred a significant part of their prerogatives to the supranational institutions and have subsequently and voluntarily reduced their independence or, at least, made it stronger by sharing it. In an effort to maximise the positive effects of European integration, this eminent teacher explains that it is necessary to strengthen the cohesion of the whole, given that the successive enlargements have increasingly threatened to make the Union a heterogeneous entity and undertaking.
(AKa)
*** MAKIS ANDRONOPOULOS: Le Syndrome allemand. La Grèce et l'Europe contre la particularité allemande. Editions Taxideftis (10 rue Valtetsiou, GR-10680 Athens. Tel: (30-210) 3638616 - fax: 3638617 - Email: info@taxideftis.gr - Internet: http://www.taxideftis.gr ). 2015, 392 pp. €19.17. ISBN: 978-960-9692-25-0.
Who are, ultimately, the Germans? How have they lived over the course of Europe's history? Why are they considered by some to be the most metaphysical people of Europe? Why do others see Napoleon as the "father" of Germany? Who made Bismarck tremble and dragged Europe into the Great War? Are Kant and Hegel responsible for the Ideology of Nazism? In what way did Marx, Nietzsche and Spengler degrade German idealism? What is the myth of "internal exile"? Are those responsible for the atrocities committed in the crematoria of Greece Nazis or Germans? How and with what means was the "purging of the Nazis" operated after the war? The economist, Makis Andronopoulos, seeks to provide answers to these questions and many others from a wide variety of scientific sources and then commences to put them all together in this book. He is the head of several daily Greek newspapers and therefore sought to understand the origins for "German posturing" observed during the tension created by the economic policy imposed by Berlin on Greece and which began to drag the latter under. To this end he began an initiative to decode the strategy advocated by Germany and subsequently returned to a number of the fears expressed by General De Gaulle and the distances maintained by the British towards Germany, as well as the mysteries involved in the very strange relationship developed within the core of the Franco German driving force behind the assumed geo-economic power. The author also explores the new "religion" of rationalist eschatology and assumed hunger of the Germans for power, victory and domination, without even mentioning their incapacity to digest their defeats. Makis Andronopoulos interprets these events that, in his eyes, have demonstrated the rising power of a kind of post-modern fascism, new racism and bio-policy, with the targeting of the Greeks and Berlin's management of the Eurozone crisis bearing this out. This research reveals the mystical attraction that the South has exercised on Germans and compares what actually results from this attraction with the previous invasion by Hitler and today's economic domination, with Greece embodying more than ever the sun that should be placed in the eye of the German storm. This "German syndrome" was overtly and clearly expressed even within German philosophy itself and it remains, more than ever, as important but in new and different shapes within the Eurozone.
(AKa)
*** CHARIS PAMPOUKIS: A propos de l'espoir. Un plan national pour surmonter la crise. Editions Livanis (98 rue Solonos, GR-10680 Athens. Tel: (30-210) 3661200 - fax: 3617791 - Email: webmaster@livanis.gr - Internet: http://www.livanis.gr ). 2016, 336 pp. €14.90. ISBN 978-960-14-3025-6.
For six years, Greece has been living in the depths of recession, following the cycle of memoranda. The question hanging over the Greek population and causing them much anguish is whether, when and how it will finally be possible to find an end to this crisis and launch a new programme of national renewal. Charis Pampoukis is a lecturer in private law at the Faculty of Law at the University of Athens, where he teaches private international law, international arbitration and international commercial law. He was also Minister of State to Prime Minister George Papandreou from October 2009 to June 2011 and in this publication he attempts to provide an answer to this question. After providing an analysis of the causes of the crisis and the mistakes in attempting to respond to them, he puts forward a number of proposals that could potentially help the country and its inhabitants find a way out of this quagmire they have been stuck in and subsequently develop a national plan that is built on solid ground. He therefore advocates the development of 10 different areas in which to build and reorganise the country, which will enable it to meet future challenges, which he believes will not be possible unless the country is guaranteed its national independence. Charis Pampoukis believes that hope can be found in all of the country's citizens because democracy will only be able to be measured by the country's ability to define its own destiny. He explains that this book is both a message of hope and an announcement that survival is possible.
(AKa)
*** ERIC BUSSIERE, OLIVIER DARD, GENEVIÈVE DUCHENNE (Editors): Francis Delaisi, du dreyfusisme à « l'Europe nouvelle ». 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. 91. 2015, 264 pp. ISBN 978-2-87574-285-8.
Francis Delaisi lived between 1873 and 1947 and has never been the subject of a book until now, even though his name was regularly cited by his contemporaries and episodes from his biography were mentioned by a very wide range of different specialist historians. This provides the reflection of a startling and unsettling trajectory that the historians contributing to this publication have managed to make more coherent. Delaisi was a young Dreyfus supporting student before 1914 when he began to establish himself as a key player in revolutionary syndicalism and his vehment essays against "the masters of France" and the "arms dealers". He struggled against the country's elites and from society's margins, Francis Delaisi penetrates this world in the aftermath of the First World War to become, by way of a remarkable essay published in 1929, "The Two Europe's", an expert in economics who is recognised by the French and international institutions alike as a stalwart of the European cause. In 1936, the Popular Front provides added vigour to this polemicist. In this era he publishes under the auspices of the Vigilance Committee of Antifascist Intellectuals, "The Bank of France in the Hands of 200 Families". He remains a convinced pacifist and defeat opens the final phase of a trajectory that ultimately leads to collaboration and with Delaisi embodying a kind of Franco-French European trajectory that illustrates the desire for a writing that includes a new history of Europe.
(PLa)