*** YANIS VAROUFAKIS: Et si les faibles subissent ce qu'ils doivent? Comment l'Europe de l'austérité menace la stabilité du monde. Éditions Les liens qui libèrent (2 impasse de Conti, F-75006 Paris. Internet: http://www.editionslesliensquiliberent.fr ). 2016, 439 pp, €24. ISBN 979-10-209-0368-6.
Yanis Varoufakis is a figure people are divided about. His most recent book is unlikely to endear him to those who can't stand him or even those who felt he wasn't to be associated with wjen he was finance minister in the Tsipras government. He doesn't use well-turned phrases simply as a matter of style - right from the preface, which he entitles 'Red blanket,' in memory of his parents who used to hide under a red blanket when they listened to German international radio, Deutsche Welle, to prevent informers for the colonels' regime from knowing about it, he returns to the outstretched hand that Dr. Schäuble refused to shake when he went to visit him in Berlin in February 2015, at the height of the crisis affecting his country. 'This rejected handshake is utterly symbolic of what's going wrong in Europe,' he immediately asserts. The anecdote could lead one to think that the man will agaikn settle some scores in this book, but not a bit of it. In this passionate book, it is an economist appreciated in London, Australia and the United States alike who expresses himself, providing an analysis that is as original as it is vitriolic of the history of Europe from 1944 to the present day. In fact, he began writing it in 2012, when he was starting work at the Lyndon B. Johnson public affairs school at Texas University; he returned to it the day after he resigned from his ministerial post, having gained in that six-month interval a good job as a player and hence an observer 'in the front line, at the heart of the crisis of Europe.'
In an earlier book, The Global Minotaur, Yanis Varoufakis sketched out his view of the causes and nature of the global crash of 2008, making the United States the star. This time, it's Europe that is the main actor, but the Greek economist points out at the start that all the same, it is 'the United States that provides the air she breathes, the nutrients she feeds off, the global context in which she evolves.' Three historical events are chosen to illustrate the love-hate relationship that characterises and shapes the destinies of Europe and Amercia. Two chapters are devoted first to the decision by President Nixon in 1971 to kick Europe out of the dollar zone set up at Bretton Woods in order for America to 'preserve its global economic hegemony,' and the shockwave from this is still being felt on either side of the Atlantic today. Three other chapters then look at the efforts made by Europeans to bandage this monetary and economic wound by linking up their currencies. Much of the book explains how monetary union was brought about, revealing episodes that while not unpublished are largel unknown to the general public. Such as when on 23 March 1964, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, young finance minister under General de Gaulle, went to meet his German counterpart, Kurt Schmücker, and suggested to him that… France and Germany should create a common currency that the four other founding nations of the European Community would join! The reasons underlying this 'indecent proposal' and the silence with which Chancellor Erhard greeted it, are explained by the author, who demonstrates how the slow maturing of monetary union in Europe 'has been guided, often invisibly, by economic decisions, past and present, taken in Washington.'
The third event that structures the book also begins in the United States, 'with the implosion of Wall Street in 2008.' The author devotes two chapters to analysing the chain reaction this gave rise to and which tossed about 'Europe's fragile monetary union' like a feather. Why? Firstly, because 'it took Europeans an eternity to understand that 2008 was our version of 1929.' Next and above all, because the European solidarity of the 1970s 'has turned into a badly designed common currency,' built 'on three paradoxes and an absurdity.' It paved the way for an explosive situation: 'In 1929, protectionism was done by devaluing the currency compared with other currencies. In 2010, (…) it was done by devaluing manpower compared with other countries' manpower.' Add to this the 'toxic bailouts' that created 'psychological faultlines along the Alps and on the Rhine,' and you end up with a European Union that is unwittingly playing for its survival - and perhaps even the survival of the whole world. 'Judging by the way it sometimes gets repeated, history has a sixth sense for tragic farce,' says Yanis Varoufakis with concern. Because it's him speaking, should one judge that he's wrong once again when he argues that a 'battle of the Titans' is currently under way 'for the integrity and soul of Europe' and that thus far, 'the forces of reason and humanism have been losing out in the battle to the rise of the irrational, authoritarianism and hate'? Because he was a researcher before becoming a politician, the author remembers the last battle fought by Margaret Thatcher in November 1990, when the 'Iron Lady' exclaimed to the House of Commons that she would fight the fight 'in all parliaments until the last' against the creation of a European central bank that was designed to remove their powers, and against 'a single currency (…) which removes all political power from us all.' Doesn't this preventive attack make sense these days? It should at least encourage one to meditate on the causes of the current process of creeping disintegration. Margaret Thatcher, Varoufakis points out, 'feared that under cover of the euro, one would surreptitiously sneak in a federation.' Hence his heartfelt cry: 'How right she was!' In his view, this would have made it possible to avoid the current bad political and democratic habits and the citizen outbursts that they are giving rise to just about everywhere in Europe. Are the members of the European Council capable of hearing this? Michel Theys
*** GREGORIO GARZÓN CLARIANA (Ed.): La democracia en la nueva gobernanza econónomica de la Unión Europea / Democracy in the New Economic Governance of the European Union / La democràcia a la nova governança econòmica de la Unió Europea. Marcial Pons Ediciones jurídicas y sociales (6 San Sotero, ES-28037 Madrid. Tel: (34-91) 3043303 - Internet: http://www.marcialpons.es ). 2015, 238 pp. ISBN 978-84-16402-89-2.
Designed on the initiative and under the direction of Prof. Garzón Clariana, holder ad personam of the Jean Monnet Chair in European Union law at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, this book brings together contributions from experts and figureheads directly concerned with managing the eurozone in these times of crisis and, in particular, with what is involved with economic governance and, more particularly, democratic legitimacy. The book thus opens with the viewpoint of Member of the European Parliament Ramon Tremosa i Balcells regarding the march towards the establishment of budget union and banking union, before handing the microphone to legal advisors at the European Parliament, the Council and the European Commission. Member of the Council of Ministers' legal service, Alberto de Gregorio casts a critical eye over the intergovernmental method as a source of democratic legitimacy within economic and monetary union, also recalling the method's origins and pros and cons and inviting readers to think about the role that member states' parliaments could play in the future. Other contributions look at the European Central Bank's relationship with democracy (Prof. Jean-Victor Louis puts forwards a some ideas about its independence and the duty to account for itself), the financial surveillance tools available in the Union, the view of two trade unionists from Comissiones Obreras, the social impact of financial assistance mechanisms and, finally, the conceivable new economic governance. (PBo)
*** DIMITRIS IOANNOU: En disséquant la crise. Éditions Papazisi (2 rue Nikitara, GR-10678 Athens. Tel: (30-210) 3822496 - Fax: 3809020 - Email: papazisi@otenet.gr - Internet: http://www.papazisi.gr ). 2016, 322 pp, €19. ISBN 978-960-02-3167-0.
This work is a collection of articles that try to interact with the facts of the crisis, which has cruelly revealed that the standard interpretation tools and concepts such as 'recession,' 'effective demand' and 'budget multiplier,' incorporated in a classical Keynesian analysis, had very little to say. The current crisis is the result of a long incubation. According to economist Dimitris Ioannou, who is currently economic advisor to the Greek foreign ministry, the problem the Greek economy is suffering from started in the mid-1990s. The crisis arose from a hyper-cycle combining finance and credit, along with the overcrowded nature of the Greek political system. According to the author, who is a renowned editorialist, from the beginning of the decade beginning in 2000, economic policy strongly violated the basic condition for the development of a balanced economy. The condition was ignored back then and is unfortunately still being ignored today, namely that a balance needs to be struck in relative terms between goods and services that are 'internationally exchangeable' and those that are not. The author adds that the constant 'excess demand' that was diffused throughout the economy during the first period of the eurozone led in Greece to the application of a primitive, naive version of Keynesianism, which led to an upsetting of this balance and to crisis when the flow of credit dried up. He says this demonstrates the structural nature of the crisis and invalidates the opinions that the solution to the problem lies in expansionist budget policies. (AKa)
*** DIMITRIS SKALKOS: La Grèce change-t-elle? L'économie politique des réformes. Éditions Epikentro (9 rue Kamvounion, GR-54621 Thessalonica. Tel: (30-231) 0256146 - Fax: 0256148 - Internet: http://www.epikentro.gr ). 2016, 160 pp, €9. ISBN 978-960-458656-1.
From a lberal perspective, political scientist Dimitris Skalkos looks in this book at a series of questions about the reform process, in order to understand what is happening in Greece in these times of crisis and memoranda. The changes that have happened in recent years under the supervision of the European and international institutions are the fruit of a 'biased external modernisation' that obviously trampled on local traditions. The reforms mostly aim, explains the author, at moving from an extrovert clientelist capitalism to an open economy and society protected by appropriate institutions. As far as this doctor in political and international science is concerned, something of the sort happened under US aid to Greece in 1947, when aid came as a package subject to vigilant supervision, which caused friction with the local elite and bureaucracy. The adjustments that were imposed in the memoranda clashed with the practices and behaviour that had prevailed in Greece to date. The author hence notes that the country is a 'blocked society' that is proving incapable of overcoming its structural problems. He rejects simplistic or deceptive explanations, asserting that the crisis and the problems it causes arise from the failure o of the Greek institutions, and if citizens are not impotent in the face of these ineffective institutions, they cannot fail to find ways to get round them.
(AKa)
*** MARIANNA TOLIA: L'euro, le sud et la Grèce. Les enquêtes et les approches de la crise en Europe du Sud et le rôle de l'euro. Éditions Metamessonikties ekdoseis (18 rue Alexandrou Soutsou, GR-10671 Athens. Tel: (30-210) 3617992 - Fax: 8015797 - Email: skbllz@hol.gr). 2015, 186 pp, €11.66. ISBN 978-960-7800-56-5.
In this book, economist Marianna Tolia reviews research by her peers and large institutions or organisations - the International Monetary Fund, Banque de France, banks in Asia… - which refute the idea that labour costs in Greece, and more generally in southern Europe, are the main culprit for the euro crisis. The genuinely existing problem of competitiveness is intrinsically linked to the architecture and functioning of the eurozone. The cases of Greece and Portugal, which joined the eurozone at an overvalued exchange rate, are analysed in greater depth, as is their industrial policy. Whence this angry cry: 'We can't leave the future of Greece and its society in this exploratory exercise, prey to a Europe that moves spasmodically and experimentally in the short-term without knowing where it's heading.' For the author, the important part is not the 'current direct impoverishment, but the more distant future, the lack of any perspectives on the horizon.' In passing, Marianna Tolia does not spare the political, scientific and press circles from her criticism. The way she sees it, debate about the formulation of a 'national reconstruction plan' is pertinent in that Greece's membership of the eurozone is hurting the country and its inhabitants rather than providing them with benefits. Her analysis of the German view of the crisis is clearly scarcely any more lenient, all of which guides her to formulate a few proposals. (AKa)
*** PANAGIOTIS ROUMELIOTIS: Les tulipes en or. Comment les spéculateurs font tomber les nations en faillite et conduisent les sociétés à la banqueroute. Éditions Livanis (98 rue Solonos, GR-10680 Athens. Tel: (30-210) 3661200 - Fax: 3617791 - Email: webmaster@livanis.gr - Internet: http://www.livanis.gr ).'Politique - Économie' series. 2016, 336 pp, €15. ISBN 978-960-14-3061-4.
In the years 1636 and 1637, Holland saw the emergence of market-makers in flowers for the first time in the tulip trade. They transformed the market for natural products into a financial market. They speculated to the detriment of producers and consumers, leading to the 'tulip' financial crisis. Since then, this technique has been used across all financial markets, causing the burgeoning of bubbles. Historical experience has since demonstrated that the strongest banking and financial circles, boosted by globalisation and having weakened national governments, manage to impose their law to the detriment of society, particularly the weakest layers of society. In this book, an emeritus professor European and international economics at the International and European Studies Department of Pantheon University, who was deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund in 2010-2011 and was also Greek trade and economics minister, explains that the financial markets are definitely a 'public good' needed to ensure the financing of the economy and social needs. They need, however, to operate for the benefit of the economy and society in general and not be left in the hands of speculators that only aim to serve their own interests. The author says that drawing up a new regulatory framework can lead to these processes becoming rational. The book is enriched with plenty of explanatory economic diagrams and an extensive bibliography. (AKa)