*** FRANS TIMMERMANS: Fraternité. Retisser nos liens. Editions Philippe Rey (7 rue Rougemont, F-75009 Paris. Tel: (33-1) 40200358 – fax: 40200761 – Email: contact@philippe-rey.fr – Internet: http://www.philippe-rey.fr ). 2016, 94 pp. €9. ISBN 978-2-84876-544-0.
This small book is written by an eminently humanitarian writer and is succinctly presented by the First Vice President of the European Commission. It tackles the different evils overwhelming European societies and in this case, European society, since the beginning of the millennium. Frans Timmermans provides some comforting words for humanity but also demands that we give a hearing to the complaints and reactions provoked by fear amongst all those who at this particular historical juncture are attempting to deal with a combination of ills in which “All the wounds of Egypt appear to be” coagulating at this precise moment. In reply to all those who have lost their bearings because, for example, the financial sector has proven to be “Full of greed, trickery and fraud” and that the global economy has also brought “massive profits for a few and deep insecurity for the many”, the author explains that giving into their fears would mean preparing for the worst and that there is not, in reality, “any reason not to believe in a wonderful future” if the citizens of Europe agree to continue building the future on the basis of “the inter- independence of all human beings”. He also points out that although Victor Hugo in 1875 envisaged fraternity as a watchword we now have to interpret this as solidarity in today’s world and “a duty to accomplish it because liberty and equality will simply remain dead letters” if it is not acted upon.
Will Frans Timmermans manage to convince a lot of Europeans not to turn their back “On the values dear to us all”? It is far from certain because although this Dutch Socialist wants us to listen to the complaint of disoriented citizens, he does not intend to give into any of their selfish concerns. When he asks them to “See the world through the eyes of others”, such as a refugee, for example, he also says that if they can’t do this they also lose something of themselves. Nonetheless, we should not believe for one moment that this message is being heard in certain milieux. Although he asks for compassion and full respect for the refugees who fled Nazism, he also points out that in the 1930s the Europeans of the time endlessly asked themselves whether it was possible “to manage with the flood of refugees and that there were too many self-servers amongst them and that social permissiveness amongst these young Jews threatened the virtue of our women and young girls and that taking the refugees might be seen as a dangers provocation to Chancellor Hitler”. These incessant discussions of the same kind are occurring today with regard to refugees of a different religion. What remains constant is the temptation to use “fear as a political instrument” because today as it was yesterday, "nothing is more tempting for a politician than to play with this fear and to instrumentalise it”. Is he calling for a new episode in the history of two very different worlds? This is something that we might fear but this small book has been devised as a way of lifting hopes amongs the fringes of European society and not to give into going with the rest of the pack.
Nonetheless, we still need to listen “to the fear of losing something” and which is working up European society, particularly the middle-class, and for which the political Community must admit that this fear is “not completely unjustified”. It is important that political leaders retake control after some of them have “succeeded in dragging the debate on immigrants and refugees to new depths” and affirming that “the elite and foreigners are taking what is ours from us”. No, we need to speak out loud and convince people that now “that the borders are surrounded by walls, things are not working” but also that “human beings cannot exist without worders”. The author explains this concept by explaining that in this context the policy towards refugees is “ a test for Europe”. In this connection, He defends the ideas contained in the Commission proposal to ensure the refugees are taken in “On the basis a fair distribution key between member states” of the Union and that this has been torpedoed by the “serious deficit in mutual trust” despite the fact that “the current approach to the problem is proving infinitely more expensive to taxpayers and if this money had been allocated towards taking more Community action”.
Are these wise words getting a hearing? Vice President Frans Timmermans is also keen on a lot of others, with his habit of “emphasising the extraordinary benefits of the European Union” and quite rightly arguing that “this kind of propaganda does not work and only creates problems”. This freethinker is also audacious enough to assert and claime that it would be “tragic and profoundly unjust note to see faith as a source of danger, intolerance, archaism and oppression” and this also applies to Islam. He therefore says it is necessary to “agree on the limitations is defined by the law and the space everyone needs to live their own truth” because he argues, “this is the only sustainable remedy if our European society is to remain viable”. Is his message going unheard? Even he is not sure that it is and he confesses that he thinks that, “for the first time, in my conscious awareness of European cooperation… the European project is really in danger of failing”. This is because of the “the increasing disparity that is separating us from our past mistakes and which is in danger being repeated”. This explains why this small book is like a message in a bottle thrown into the sea calling on us “to remain loyal to the treaties as an ideal basis for continuing to treat one another fairly”. This is an urgent message for all the decision makers throughout Europe! Michel Theys
*** LOÏC AZOULAI, SEGOLENE BARBOU DES PLACES, ETIENNE PATAUT (Editors : Constructing the Person in EU Law. Rights, Roles, Identities. Hart Publishing (Kemp House, Chawley Park, Cumnor Hill, Oxford OX2 9PH, UK. Tél. : (44-1865) 598648 – fax: 727017 – Email: mail@hartpub.co.uk – Internet: http://www.hartpub.co.uk ). 2016, 328 pp. £54.99. ISBN 978-1-78225-933-6.
As part of the Christian tradition that developed, the idea of the “person” has assumed a privileged position within Europe and as the editors of this book explain in their introduction, this individual is “endowed with moral significance and legal protection”. This is indeed the case as exemplified in the Charter of Fundamental Rights, which explains that the, “Union places the person at the heart of its action” and the German, Dutch, Portuguese and Swedish versions of it mention the “human being” in the same perspective. It subsequently transpires that according to the charter, “individuals are granted rights, roles and responsibilities within the Union”, which are themselves invested in through common policies and its institutional projects. It is these different kinds of investment that are analysed in the pages and fifteen chapters of this book, which these top flight legal specialists have put together. The different writers each in turn invite the reader to look at the potential and limits of EU legal individualism and examine the reconstruction of personhood in EU law, as well as the tensions that exist between the concept of personhood and how it is included. The book also contains an analysis of the relationship between individual identity, identity and status in society. This insight into the very foundations of European law shows that the citizen within the internal market is at least as important as the member states and can even be interpreted as an “auxiliary agent of the Community” when it is in its name that the European Court of Justice does not cede to the interests of a specific member state. In the social field, the social rights that it provides means that it can even carry out a constitutional function. This is indeed, a passionate book! (MT)
*** CONSTANTINOS YANNAKOPOULOS: L'impact de la législation européenne sur le contrôle judiciaire de la constitutionnalité des lois. Editions Sakkoulas (23 rue Ippokratous, GR-10679 Athens. Tel: (30-210) 3387500 – fax: 3390075 – Email: info@sakkoulas.gr – Internet: http://www.sakkoulas.gr ). 2015, 560 pp. €48. ISBN 978-960-445-961-2.
In an effort to ensure the primacy of European law over national law, the legal order of the European Union has drawn up a comprehensive system for examining the compatibility of national legislation with Community law. This study by Constantinos Yannakopoulos, a professor of Law at the University of Athens, seeks to ensure that these effects becomes more systematic. It also shows that European legislation has made a significant contribution to the transformation to the Constitutional situation in member states. In addition to the adjustments imposed through this channel to national legislation, compulsory and immediate application of Union law means that the national authorities, particularly the respective national legal bodies, are obliged to make the voluntary adaptations of national law in order to reinforce the guarantees of the rule of law and which even go beyond the scope of the actual Union law itself. At the same time, the determination of the operational bodies of the state and their individual responsibilities to ensure the effective implementation of the Union objectives, seriously upset the regulatory power of the respective national constitutions and the coherency of the national legal order in question. This study specifically focuses on the effects of the case of the European Court of Justice controls on the constitutionality of the laws enacted by the Greek courts and, in particular, by the Council of State, which is effectively the Constitutional Court in Greece. The developments in comparative law highlight the dynamic multi-dimensional effect of the Union’s legislation on the national law of member states, as well as the exemplary character of the system for controlling laws in Greece. As pointed out by Professor Yannakopoulos, there are also references made to controlling the compatibility of laws with the European Convention on Human Rights, which highlights the immense complexity and multi-layered character of what must be called “European constitutional law”. This book also contains an immense bibliography. (AKa)
*** GEORGIOS MAVROGORDATOS: La division ethnique. 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, 343 pp. €15.50. ISBN 978-960-16-6498-9.
Since its independence in 1821, Greece has been subject to incessant divisions and the Greeks, it is true, are still divided today. As if is it something in their DNA they appear bound by this predicament. Some are pro-English, whilst others are pro-French or pro-Russian, supporters or adversaries of the many dictatorships that have ravaged Greece over the two centuries of independence, with far right extremists against leftists, nationalists against supporters of the workers’ movements, which created the conditions for the civil war of 1946-1949… the Greeks have never tired of tearing one another part. Even today, polarisation persists because the Syriza Government has resurrected the ancient hatreds and passions of the Greeks and the message of “whoever is not with us, is against us”. This book is the result of 40 years of research, reflection, writing and teaching on what could be described as the “national schism”. Georgios Mavrogordatos is a professor of history at the Pantheon University of Athens. He seeks to understand and interpret the causes of this permanent friction. After having presented the main events from 1909 to 1922, the author locates the “national schism” as an almost religious phenomena, With charismatic origins irrespective of whether this involves the crisis in the national integration process, the class struggle or the battles that ultimately developed into civil war. We are free to disagree with this interpretation, hee argues, but not with the factual basis upon which history is based. This renowned historian and specialist in Greek social history, demonstrate in this book, to what extent this tormented history is the product of both glory and disaster that has led to prosperity and ruin in equal measure. (AKa)
*** ANASTASIOS-IOANNIS METAXAS (Editor) : La science politique, enquête interdisciplinaire et transversale sur le fonctionnement de la politique. La psychologie politique : les pré-purifications et les déterminations du comportement politique (Vol. 3). Editions Sideris (116 rue Solonos, GR-10681 Athens. Tel: (30-210) 3833434 – fax: 3832294 – Email: contact@isideris.gr). 2016, 479 pp. €25. ISBN 978-960-08-0714-1.
This is the third volume of a 10-part study, which has been entirely edited by the emeritus professor at the University of Athens and the Peloponnese, Anastasios Metaxas. 24 academic specialists make a contribution to the study of political psychology in this volume. On the basis of a fixed contractual content, this is defined as the sector that helps to diagnose the different ways, often concealed, in which individuals learn to internalise, formally and informally, their political role and opinions. This “normal” behaviour is sometimes more or less overt and sometimes more or less hidden. It is also fashioned by the prevailing political culture. (AKa)
*** PETROS MARKARIS: Offshore. Editions Gavrielidis (17 rue Aghias Eirinis, GR-10551 Athens. Tel: (30-210) 3228839 – fax: 8046914 – Email: info@gavrielidesbooks.gr). 2016, 304 pp. €15.90. ISBN 978-960-576-524-8.
After the past six years and four novels by Petros Markaris, the internationally acclaimed Greek novelist, the crisis in Greece has finally coming to an end. Money is beginning to flow again and the Greeks are getting back into their bad habits as usual. Certain sceptical quarters are, however, asking where this money is coming from. A series of murders forces Inspector Haritos, Markaris’s principal hero, to search for the origins of this money arriving Greece because it is the key to shedding light on these murders. During this book, Markaris once again depicts the life of a Greek bourgeois family, its reactions to the crisis and its psychological ways of surviving it. This book is as good or even perhaps better than the many “serious” books portraying the sad reality experienced by Greeks. It brings the reader to the very heart of the problem of so-called black money and the financial embezzlements and inertia amongst the elite when it comes to tackling this problem. The novel, “Offshore” can be read in a single sitting, even though the killers can be identified from the very first pages. It is in fact the reasons why do what they do and what is hidden behind their action that is at the heart of this enquiry into the quintessence of the black political thriller. (AKa)