*** 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 ). September/October 2016, No 96, 84 pp. €9. Subscription: €40.
Is it a sign of the times or more due to dissatisfaction and dreams of a better world. In any case, Utopia is once again back in the media and back in fashion, to the point that an excellent feature article focuses on “Utopias in the 21st century” in this edition of Politique, this progressive French-speaking Belgian journal. It should be said that there is an historic reason for this initiative because in December 1516, 500 years ago, the University of Leuven printing press published a small book in Latin by the British legal specialist, Thomas More, entitled “Utopia”, which time has done nothing to affect its success. This anniversary is also celebrated by the University which has separated into two since then: the KUL (Dutch speaking) and the UCL (French-speaking) and their different activities which began in 2015 and will continue next year (http://www.uclouvain.be/utopies ).
On the basis of the book of Thomas More, who paid with his life for his opposition to his sovereign, Henry VIII, the authors brought together by Gabriel Maissin put his message and themes to a contemporary test. According to the philosopher, Anne Staquet, who points out that Utopias are often given a bad rap, they are in fact indispensable, given that they criticise our societies and imagine better ones. Their role is therefore both “utilitarian and subversive” and they pose the following questions: disease at the end of one’s life; women and sexuality and who are still in search of positive utopias: the relationship between citizenship and aspirations to a world without borders; the necessity of tackling the notions of utopia in light of its negative sides and excesses; the way in which to frame the concept of emancipation between “The principle of hope” and the “principle of responsibility”.
The contemporary nature of More’s book is located in the fact that it is necessary to inform the narrator of the voyage to Utopia that poverty and its repressive treatment are caused by the excessive number of nobles and parasites who benefit from the work of others and who cultivate their land by destroying their farms in order to increase their income, which proves that by ensuring the existence of all members of society, ano one needs to steal or die from poverty and that society must prevent theft and pointless penalties. Replace nobles with bankers and ask Greek pensioners what should be done with them and you will easily understand More’s point of view: there is injustice in killing a man stealing money because human society cannot be organised in a way that guarantees everyone an equal portion. Fortunately, the death penalty has been abolished in Europe but there are social and societal deaths that persist in the Union and which justify expectations of new utopias. What Thomas More advocated on this question can still be heard and which, according to Luca Ciccia, can be found in the sinuous parts of family collectivisation and which sought to get rid of class identity through “an almost totalitarian community” and economic inequalities “through freely rendered, reduced but obligatory work”? These areas of ideas must, nonetheless, remain open. John Pitseys examines the profound contradiction dividing the utopia/democracy duality and the fact that this is a “Utopia that nourishes other utopias”. This member of the Crisp (Centre de recherche et d’information sociopolitique) provides a convincing explanation of the way in which the sense of life in society is located in a context of eminently political exchanges between two different poles. Finally, Isabelle Pauthier provides an insight into her own utopia and in her view that President Junker and European civil servants are coalescing to save Brussels and within it, the European Union. This thesis is delightful and which affectively concludes that Jean-Claude Junker’s role can be found at the angles of the Joseph II and Taciturn roads and the following dedication, “Europe was a Mirage and Brussels its the Oasis”!
For the remainder, there are a number of insights into “identity excesses”, the migration agreement with Turkey, which seeks to remove its international obligations and values, Labour after Brexit and the US elections… Michel Theys
*** 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 ). September-October 2016, No. 414, 152 pp. €22. Annual subscription €115. ISBN 978-2-84387-427-7.
This edition of this authoritative French perspectives journal contains a very interesting feature article on the complex relationships between urban utopian and political thinking. It was edited by the economist and urban studies expert, Jean Haëntjens. In his introduction, he begins by underlining the historic complicity between utopians and urban experts, the different ages of utopian thinking and the way in which architects and urban experts use these utopias to modify the urban landscape. He also highlights of the current developments that have been going on since the 1970s, particularly the emergency new urban, utopian and assimilated propositions, which do not emanate from visionary theoreticians but increasingly from associations or charities, collective organisations, companies or citizens who decide to take the future of their respective cities in hand themselves. This subsequently raises a question for the editor-in-chief, Hugues de Jouvenel, in his editorial, “should the utopias of yesterday be regretted, in addition to the perfect cities dreamt about by Plato, Aristotle and Campanella, in exchange for the harsh law imposed by phalanstery? Or should we delighted with the fact that the urbanisation process is becoming democratised…?” The different examples of contemporary urban utopias that make up the body of this article help us to develop a cautious opinion of the ideas put forward. Jean-François Soupizet, a former official at the European Commission demonstrates how urban intelligence constitutes a new paradigm for utopian thinking. In addition to this feature article, his former colleague, Jean-François Drevet, returned to the subject of the likely consequences of Brexit, in the “European Column”. He predicts that the budgetary pill is going to be a bitter one for a country that has been benefiting from a reduction and that the, “prospects for a more beneficial agreement that its current status are very slim”. Nonetheless, we should not assume that the prospects for relaunching European integration are any better, “given that their belief in the efficiency of national borders, a very substantial segment of public opinion is repeating the mistakes of the leaders of the past and those of many of our grandparents in the Maginot Line of the 1930s”. Drevet also warns that by giving more weight to the European Council, “which has regularly displayed its impotence, a situation is being created in which the national parliaments can impose blockage, which would mean it would be almost impossible to defend the European interest”. This analysis is very hard-hitting in its ability to expose what actually is going on! (MT)
*** Regions & Cities of Europe. News from the UE’s assembly of regional and local representatives. Comité des régions (99-101 rue Belliard, B-1040 Bruxelles. Tél. : (32-2) 2822211 – fax : 2822085 – Email: regionsandcities@cor.europa.eu – Internet : http://www.cor.europa.eu ). May/June 2016, No. 95, 26 pp.
This information letter from the Committee of the Regions focuses particular attention on the European Union’s urban agenda and the many different challenges: economic, social and environmental - facing Europe’s cities and a concerted action by the European institutions required in the future to tackle them. This will require going beyond exchanges of good practices, explains the Dutch Minister for the interior. (MT)
*** GIORGOS RAFTOPOULOS: La fin de l'utopie. Editions Limon (2-4 rue Nikitara, GR-10678 Athens. Tel: (30-210) 3227323 – Email: ekd.limon@gmail.com). 2016, 320 pp. €21.20. ISBN 978-618-82668-5-8.
The author of this book is the former Secretary-General and President of the Greek workers’ Federation and member of the executive committee of the European trade Union Confederation and International Confederation of Free Trade Unions. He was also a member of the European Economic and Social Committee and the European Parliament at the beginning of the 1990s. He explains that publishing this book was neither easy for him nor pleasant. It was not easy because, for a long time, establishing contact with the leadership of Syriza, particularly with Alexis Tsipras, was unthinkable for this trade unionist and Socialist, which he was at the time, even though since then he has established strong ties with the head of this party and has been able to conclude a number of political agreements with him. It was not pleasant because the rapid political transformation of Syriza was inevitable and its submission to the ideological demands of the European political and economic classes made it impossible for a leftist government to meet the hopes, expectations and demands of the world of work. According to Giorgos Raftopoulos, this aspiration was destroyed between 2010 in 2015, when it came apart under the blows of the brutal memoranda dictating what conduct should be followed by the governance of New Democracy and Pasok. The author was one of the rare leaders of Pasok in 2011 to have supported with perseverance, determination and passion, the idea of political cooperation with the rival brother party of Syriza. Unfortunately, he went unheeded and Pasok is now vegetating with support of around 4% of the Greek electorate, which he fittingly describes as the end of a certain utopia. (AKa)
*** ANASTASIOS-IOANNIS METAXAS (Editor): La science politique, enquête interdisciplinaire et transversale sur le fonctionnement de la politique. Communication politique : la raison critique et autoritaire (Vol. 2). Editions Sideris (116 rue Solonos, GR-10681 Athens. Tel: (30-210) 3833434 – fax: 3832294 – Email: contact@isideris.gr). 2016, 588 pp. €25. ISBN 978-960-08-0715-8.
Communication policy logically follows on from political psychology. To a certain extent it seems to have become a value by default. This second volume of a ten-part study edited by Anastasios Metaxas, emeritus professor at the University of Athens and University of the Peloponnese, includes contributions by 26 specialists from the academic community. In a fact based dossier they provide a critical analysis of all the different subjects included in the policy arena, as well as the different influences that stem from this domain. (AKa)
*** THANASSIS DIAMANTOPOULOS: Institutions. Crise et rupture. Editions Patakis (38 Panayi Tsaldari, GR-10437 Athens. Tel: (30-210) 3650000 – fax: 3811940 – Email: bookstore@patakis.gr – Internet: http://www.patakis.gr ). « Sciences sociales et politiques » series. 2016, 278 pp. €11.90. ISBN 978-960-16-6875-8.
The litany is long: favouritism, friendly contracts, the lack of reliability, the lack of trust, the search for the most profitable situations, nepotism, party loyalties, the paralysing effects of the fear of political costs, political stability, financial instability, legal uncertainty and the investment repercussions that results from these. These are some of the reasons Professor Thanassis Diamantopoulos (department of International and European Studies at the Pantheon University of Athens) he identifies as being the main damaging problems to the Greek political system. These political problems contaminate the whole of the country’s economic and social life. He asks how in these conditions they could reduce these damaging factors in an effort to strengthen the institutions, such as the Constitutional Court, the House of Representatives and the Senate. The goal is to put a stop to the impulsive demonstrations of popular and damaging sovereignty in the country. It therefore explores the possibility of conferring the President of the Republic with additional responsibilities (for example, the right to control the way referendums are held). He also asks if they should change the way in which leaders in the legal community are chosen and whether they could improve the electoral system in force for general elections, as a means to improve the general situation. He even goes much further than this and asks whether they should not quite simply move to a system of presidential democracy. The author’s objective is to simply contribute to finding answers to the political fault lines in the Greek system. The author’s objective is therefore attained, given that the proposals are now being analysed by a number of different political leaders and academics. (AKa)
*** BASIL CORONAKIS: The Deep State of Europe. Welcome to Hell. Editions New Europe Group (The Media Lab Limited, 96 av. de Tervueren, B-1040 Brussels. Tel: (32-2) 5390039 – Internet: http://www.neweurope.eu ). 2016, 256 pp. 19 €19. ISBN 978-153281508-9
When certain individuals put forward the idea that Brussels is “Sin City”, they are not referring to drugs, prostitution or the mafia. Their main target is what has been committed in the capital of Europe with regard to the project that forms the basis of European construction well before the European Union even saw the light of day. Basil Coronakis is an editor and journalist at the head of a newspaper that has covered European affairs for 23 years. He still believes in the original idea but the reality involved in the exercise of power in the less than steady structures of the Union obliges him to adopt a more circumspect perspective. This book provides a guide to demystifying the legend of the Union and its institutions. It also reveals what happens within the European Commission and within a “system”, which he accuses of often behaving like a “gang of companies”. He therefore claims to reveal the secrets of the Machiavellian state and mind of the Brussels “nomenklatura”, which govern the daily lives of half a billion Europeans and many others, often without any moral or political legitimacy. The “ten small internal scandals”, which he brings to light in this book help the reader understand “Why” and “how” the sins were committed at the Berlaymont and in the other buildings where peace has been guaranteed on the continent since just after the end of the Second World War. He reveals how the money of European citizens is used, abused and wasted. He believes that the corruption of the European Commission is systemic, horizontal, vertical and even exists at a legal level. He argues that this system is self-perpetuating, remains hermetically sealed and that the majority of Commissioners and number of second-class member states are trapped within it. He also attempts to put forward a number of possible ways Europeans could free themselves from this unhealthy stranglehold without destroying what has been achieved over the past seventy years. (AKa)