*** JAN KULAKOWSKI: Rencontre à Bagatela. Entretien avec Leszek Jesien. Éditions Couleur livres (4 rue Masquelier, B-7000 Mons. Tel: (32-65) 823944 - Email: commandes@couleurlivres.be - Internet: http://www.couleurlivres.be ). 2015, 174 pp. €19. ISBN 978-2-87003-680-8.
The title of this book is enigmatic but the name of its author remains inscribed in the memories many people from Brussels, to Poland and almost everywhere else in the world. Bagatela is the name of the road where the Kulakowski couple lived in Warsaw. In the preface to the Polish edition, his best friend, Tadeusz Mazowiecki, the Prime Minister of a Poland free from the Communist regime between 1989 and 1991, points out that at this abode, talk was about trade unionism, politics, Europe and the "essential questions" about faith or the lack of faith: "this is the place where, just as in Brussels, we can have conversations with a good glass of red wine". The imperfect tense is required for this book because Jan Kulakowski passed away in 2011. This explains the precious character of this French tradition, which enables us to remember or discover, the atypical trajectory of this Polish citizen, the antithesis of those that currently preside the destiny of this country that has become one of the members of the Union, thanks to him.
In his forward, Eneko Landaburu remembers (one of his main interlocutors for the European Commission during these accession negotiations), "an affable, discreet and almost self-effacing man, who looked at odds in the corridors of power where oversized egos have a habit of spreading themselves out". The former Director-General of Directorate General Enlargement (as well as others…) also recalls the, "nonconformist" and the "rebel" whose first call to arms during his adolescence was participating in the Warsaw uprising against the Nazis, before his mother made him choose exile in her country of origin, Belgium. In this book it is the different stages of a far from banal itinerary that became his life once he had obtained his doctorate in law from the Catholic University of Leuven, which are revisited in this book. They provide an answer to the questions and comments made by the political scientist Leszek Jesien, who was one of his advisers when he negotiated his country's accession to Community Europe. No one had really predicted this. Initially, he had dedicated his life to that of that of professional trade union activist, after being schooled in the social doctrine of the Catholic Church and after having moved forward with the Christian workers youth movement. This orientation led him to occupying a variety of different leading positions, beginning with the Christian trade union movement, then as the first Secretary General of the European Trade Union Confederation, an organisation that where the, "pluralism of ideas that were at the origin of European integration convinced this that it could also be the driving force for trade union unification". He also explained that this organisation's reason for being was to embody, "the defence of working people's interests as part of European integration, not just when having to face employers but also when having to deal with governments". His trade union trajectory also meant that he made speeches to more than 1 million people during a demonstration on 1 May, following the Carnation Revolution in Portugal, made contacts with trade union militants clashing with the Greek colonels or the Communists in his country, journeys in other countries, such as Pakistan, Argentina, Chile and Africa, where his trade union profile saw him come under the radar of the different political police forces.
As a Belgian-Pole (he symbolically abandoned his Belgian nationality when Poland became a democracy) and trade unionist, he was obviously duty-bound to support the Solidarnosc movement that led to the appointment of Tadeusz Mazowiecki, as the first head of a non-Communist government in the Eastern bloc premier. At his request, Kulakowski exchanged his garb of the trade unionist to become for six years from 1990 to 1996, Poland's ambassador to Community Europe, before becoming the head of the team that negotiated its accession to the Union. This book provides a perfect account of the way in which these negotiations were carried out, as well as the conviction demonstrated by the "main negotiator", who, as described by Eneko Landaburu believed that, "Poland and his people could only accomplish their destiny by being involved in and a stakeholder to the European destiny". What would Jan Kulakowski say of the posturing currently adopted by the Polish leaders against Brussels today? Undoubtedly this admirer of Mounier would be very sad or even very cross. As a Christian and a fervent Catholic, this man was, points out Eneko Landaburu, a decisive builder who helped break down the sectarianism existing in the Christian trade union movement and helped to unite it within the European Confederation of Unions. He once told Leszek Jesien that he regretted that in Poland there were, "fundamentalist currents, particularly among Catholics". Perhaps, today, he would agree with an idea expressed by Belgian trade union leader, August Cool, who also discussed ideas involving Franco's Spain, "You know, I'm a Christian and subsequently, I can't wish any ill on Franco but sometimes I pray and ask the Lord to open his eyes and if this doesn't really prove possible, then for him to close them"…
Michel Theys
*** ANNA KARAMANOU: L'Europe et les droits des femmes. L'européanisation en Grèce et en Turquie. Éditions Papazisi (2 rue Nikitara, GR-10678 Athens. Tel: (30-210) 3822496 - fax: 3809020 - Email: papazisi@otenet.gr - Internet: http://www.papazisi.gr ). 2016, 712 pp. €33.92. ISBN 978-960-02-3151-9.
Anna Karamanou was a member of the European Parliament between 1997 and 2004. She was elected to the Socialist Group Bureau and was also the President of the Parliamentary Committee for Women's Rights and Gender Equality. Today, she is still the Vice President of the European Socialist Women, after having been a founding member and Vice President of the Political Association of Women. This book therefore obviously looks at the issue of women's rights over the fascinating period of the 19th century. It also analyses and compares the impact of the European system on the construction of the nationstate and the affirmation of women's rights in two countries that did not participate in the Renaissance or the Enlightenment, Greece and Turkey. Her research covers historic sources, facts, myths, political, legal and cultural factors intertwined with the stereotypes inherited from prevailing patriarchal culture in the Balkans and Mediterranean. She illustrates how the two political systems and dominant religions, Greek Orthodoxy and Islam in Turkey, left their mark on the countries, particularly with regard to the question of Abaton or the entry ban. Despite the fact that Greece and Turkey have major cultural differences and complicated historic relations between victor and vanquished, these two countries do present remarkable similarities and have indeed followed parallel paths: the European orientation and pro-Western policy, the pursuit of a European identity, geographical proximity, cultural duality, a centralised state, outmoded economic and social structures, discrimination against women and, sometimes, violence against them, as well as weaknesses in their modern democracies. This can be seen in the different historic, political and social context of these two hybrid systems that are attempting to strike a balance between Oriental culture and the evolution of ideas, science, human rights, justice and political equality prevailing in contemporary Europe. This book combines detailed research with a meticulous analysis and also contains a very comprehensive bibliography.
(AKa)
*** LUCIA BONFRESCHI, GIOVANNI ORSINA, ANTONIO VARSORI (editors): European Parties and the European Integration Process, 1945-1992. Presses Interuniversitaires Européennes / Peter Lang (1 av. Maurice, B-1050 Brussels. Tel: (41-32) 3761717 - fax: 3761727 - Email: pie@peterlang.com - Internet: http://www.peterlang.com ). « Euroclio » series, No. 90. 2015, 416 pp. ISBN 978-2-87574-279-7.
This book involves historians bringing together three different traditions contained in history studies: national policy, European integration and, finally, the political parties. Since the 1980s, the field of political history has been effectively enlarged, with an attempt to transcend national frontiers that has led to a crossed approach to the integration process, by focusing more on transnational perspectives and forces. The different chapters in this book have been developed and drafted in view of forging a dialogue between these different methodologies and the study of political parties, in different ways. First of all, the authors seek to find out whether and how, through their European and foreign policy, the political parties are confined to a strictly national perspective or whether they have been projected in to different European and transnational dimensions. Secondly, they also verify whether the history of the political party has gone beyond national borders in light of the cooperation developed at European and/or international levels. Subsequently, they also reveal a number of different interesting areas of study with regard to the way in which the different political families have dealt with European integration in the perspective of national and non-ideological divisions. This book certainly fills a void in European historiography and compares the speeches, programmes and policies of the parties relating to European integration. The two main parts of the book look at the different political groupings on the left, then those on the centre, the right and others. In the second and final part of the book, the reader will find five case studies, the last of them focusing on Sandro Guerrieri and the supranational formation of political groups in the Parliamentary Assembly of the European Community of Coal Steel.
(PLa)
*** GEORGIOS BITROS: Jamais plus en faillite. Un héritage à la base de la philosophie de la liberté. Éditions Epikentro (9 rue Kamvounion, GR-54621 Salonika. Tel: (30-231) 0256146 - fax: 0256148 - Internet: http://www.epikentro.gr ). 2015, 296 p. €15. ISBN 978-960-458-599-1.
Over many centuries the Greeks oscillated between the Occident and the Orient. It would not be long before all this changed. The confidence of Greek citizens in the Ancien regime collapsed. Different information broadcast on the Internet and the demands made by globalisation decreed that in terms of efficient management of financial resources, the different advantages that could arise from the organisation of a state based on the prevailing model in the Western world would win out sooner or later but with it resistance to the reforms required to go in this direction too. This is, at least, the point of view put forward by George Bitros in this book. Emeritus Professor of political economy at the Economic University of Athens, he argues that the Greeks are currently accepting the following points: a) consolidation of democracy requires the necessary condition, which is not enough on its own, acceptance of the free market economy; b) maintaining an enormous heavy and inefficient state that sucks all the vitality out of Greek society only benefits corruption and comes mainly at a cost to the weakest social groups that the state in question is supposed to be protecting; c) in order to democratise the country, the state must withdraw from controlling education and supporting subsidies to the mass media because of the author of this book explains, the authorities do not have the right in a democracy to influence the perceptions of citizens because this creates the risk of undermining freedom and creativity. These are the conditions according to Professor Bitros that pave the way to viable social and economic progress that can benefit Greece and ensure that it never again goes bankrupt.
(AKa)
*** VASSILIS FOUSKAS, CONSTANTINOS DIMOULAS: La Grèce, la mondialisation et l'Union européenne: l'économie politique de la dette et de l'effondrement social. Éditions Epikentro (see address attached). 2015, 338 pp. €17.92. ISBN 978-960-458-524-3.
When the global financial crisis spread throughout Europe due to the weakness of the banking sector on its periphery, certain quarters argued that the real causes of the crisis were not exclusively located in the mistaken architecture of globalisation and European integration but also in the declining economic power of the "Global Orient". Vassilis Fouskas is a professor of International relations at the University of Richmond in London and is also the editor of the Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies. Kostas Dimoulas is a professor of political science at Pantheon University and in this book, they look at the “global” and “local” aspects of the European Union. They examine the economic, geopolitical and historic origins of the Greek debt crisis threatening cohesion, as well as the entire architecture of Euro-Atlantic security in the world. They consider that the debt problem is a “birthmark” exclusive to Greece, which, has shifted from one master to another, without looking closely enough, as well as the half-truths that have developed during the debt crisis in Greece and the Eurozone. An immense bibliography is included in this book, which also exists in English in in the Macmillan version.
(AKa)
*** Politique. Revue de débats. ASBL Politique (9 rue du Faucon, B-1000 Brussels. Tel: (32-2) 5386996 - email: secretariat@politique.eu.org - Internet: http://politique.eu.org ). March/April 2016, No. 94, 84 pp. €9. Subscription: €40.
This edition of the progressive Belgian journal includes two substantial dossiers. The first focuses on the different whirlwinds currently shaking up the European left and which have proved extremely traumatic for the “traditional” social democratic parties (Germany, the Netherlands and Greece) and full of promise for the so-called radical left and political ecologists who see in them the huge potential that has been recuperated from all the other parties. In this context, Professor Philippe Marlière (University College London) sees Jeremy Corbyn as a possible "leading light" in a pan-European front against austerity. The second looks at the "paradoxes of migration" affecting the European Union and the "tornado" that is currently undermining the balance between a "fortress and a leaking sieve". The different contributions also show how European migration policies have been continually modelled on the basis of the "fluctuating needs for labour power" and the authors also seek to explain why they need to or do not need to make a clear distinction between asylum seekers and economic migrants. Several of the contributions believe that this distinction between migrants is artificial and irrelevant, as François Gemenne explains, "poverty is as much a constraint as it is a repression". A final insight is more than unexpected because it involves Carlo Caldarini pointing out that more and more Europeans are being expelled from Belgium and the Union as a whole because the free movement of persons was based on workers and not those receiving welfare. He puts this down to the states that refused France's invitation to proceed to a genuine harmonisation of national social security regimes, which has led to social dumping and welfare tourism.
(MT)