*** L'Europe en formation. Revue d'études sur la construction européenne et le fédéralisme – Journal of Studies on European Integration and Federalism. Centre international de formation européenne (« L’Adriatic », 81 rue de France, F-06000 Nice. Tel: (33-4) 93979397 – fax: 93979398 – Email: europe.formation@cife.eu – Internet: http://www.cife.eu ). 2016, No. 379, 240 pp. €20. €50.
This issue of the review founded by the champion of federalism, Alexandre Marc, contains an excellent feature article on the persisting and current validity of the concept of the “Europe of regions”. It is inspired by the question formulated by the political scientist, Stanley Hoffmann, in 1966, with regard to whether the nationstate was “obsolete or obstinate”. Frédéric Lépine, joint editor with Matthias Waechter, explains that the pursued goal was to examine a quarter of a century after the creation of the Committee of the Regions with the signing of the Maastricht Treaty, what had become of the regions of Europe and what political and economic role were they playing today and how the current situation meets the original aims.
This perspective lies at the heart of the contribution made by François Saint-Ouen. As Secretary General of the European Centre for Culture founded by Denis de Rougemont and course leader at the Institute for Global Studies at University of Geneva, this specialist in federalism and European construction in the perspective of the local and regional authorities, highlights the fact that 43% of the EU population is now living in a Europe of…“three levels of government” and that around 216.5 million European citizens live in “74 regions that have legislating powers” and for which it is estimated that they transpose no less than 70% of European legislation without the intervention of their national parliaments. It is on the basis of the data provided by the trans-European network that these regional parliaments through the “Conference of European Regional Legislative Assemblies (CALRE)” assess the evolution of regional factors and the regions with legislative powers how they envisage their inclusion in the process of European construction. He also illustrates the obvious and natural interest that these regions have in maintaining the subsidiarity principle, given that this mechanism is rather less appreciated by the member states except when they invoke it in any set to they may have with the Union. This Rougemont loyalist returns to the original idea of the “Europe of regions” and points out that the “ethnic region” founded on language and “which ultimately perpetuates the idea of borders” is under threat because it “can seek to resemble a member state… transform itself into a mini nationstate or a reduced nationstate”, which is why it prefers “the cross-border region” or even more so “the region as an area of civic participation”. Whatever the case, François Saint-Ouen, observes the obvious rising power of a new phenomenon, namely, “the Europeanism of the territories” even though the regions aspire to independence as located within the framework of the European Union. Nonetheless, although the region as an entity has now become an unavoidable fact within the framework of the Union, nothing suggests that a genuine “Europe of the regions” can emerge in the short-term.
Katharina Crepaz analyses the visible separatist tendencies in certain member states and asks whether a broader use of the subsidiarity principle could help to mitigate this phenomenon. A number of case studies follow: a comparative analysis of Scotland and Catalonia, an analysis of the mixed results of Spanish decentralisation as a means of reducing tension, the impact of the recent waves of migration on regionalist movements, the situations developing in Belgium, Poland and Sweden. Two of the latter contributions focus on the Union’s instruments to influence regional development. This general picture results from the feeling, according to Frédéric Lépine, that the content of regional identity has evolved and now corresponds more to “a functional identity that is both a safeguard for subsidiarity faced with centralising tendencies in public policies but also an element of identity in increasing globalisation and in which citizens have the feeling that they still have power to influence policy”.
In addition to this main article, there is also a reflection provided by the former MEP, Jean-Antoine Giansily, which focuses on economic, monetary and political lessons to learn from Brexit. In this reflection, he denounces the “way in which the humanist message has been perverted”, a message the original European project contained and which led to Great Britain’s membership. This has effectively led to the “laissez-faire, let it go” line that has rejected any state intervention in the economy and became the “watchword of the Commission” under the presidency of José Manuel Barroso and that the spirit of the Treaty of Rome was subsequently betrayed and gave birth to “an open system whose other watchword is greed”. In his diatribe, he also incriminates a number of national leaders who, either through “ignorance, lack of maturity or simply incompetence, were ultimately destructive, in a context where greed had become the cardinal virtue”. His ideas regarding the majority of countries that joined during the first decade of the century are no kinder either. If these overt denunciations are given a hearing, is it not, however, pertinent or in any case, realistic, when he proposes that no tears are shed for Brexit and that this should be used as a situation in which to impose the euro on all member states and to put an end to “the derogations that are effectively nothing but privileges”? It is certainly a position upon which the jury still needs a lot of convincing… Michel Theys
*** 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 ). « Les hors-série de Politique » series. October 2016, No. HS25, 84 pp. €4. Subscription €40.
This special issue of the progressive Belgian political journal focuses entirely on the 94th Social Week of the European Christian Movement. Its theme for this issue this year concentrated on the question of whether “Europe is on the edge of collapse?” The Secretary General of the Movement, Pierre Georis, explains the “disillusion” of citizens due to the betrayal of the original objectives, particularly after fall of the Berlin Wall and the “end to the Communist threat” which meant that there was no longer any obligation to look kindly on “social policies”. The times and “resistance tactics” embodied by Jacques Delors in the face of Thatcherism were seen as obsolete, So why should we be surprised if the younger generation that for the past 20 years confronted “a punitive Europe in terms of its economic and social policies or how it manages the refugee crisis” demonstrates more defiance than enthusiasm with what is being built today? Nonetheless, he rather timidly argues that Europe remains “the reasonable bet” and that the social movement observed at the European level to oppose the Bolkestein directive demonstrates that civil society is capable, when it really wants to, of influencing political orientation. On the question of whether the European project is now in danger, the historian, Vincent Dujardin, points out that unfortunately, “the basis of the common values of 70 years ago now appears to be evaporating” and the social justice and solidarity, which were at the heart of the project of the “Founding Fathers” are now under threat. Dujardin is the president of the Institute of European Studies at the Catholic University of Louvain and he believes it is of the utmost urgency that the Commission, which was particularly guilty of having for along time lost its ability to move forward or “use its right of the initiative” gets to grips with the situation again. He believes that the Commission became a “kind of super secretariat of the Council, indeed, an enormous bureaucratic machine” that has obviously created misgivings in its regard. That said, there are more positive examples provided with regard to the efficient European tools that exist. It is, however, the prevailing disenchantment that the three themes subsequently explore and which involve the economic, environmental and social prospects. In this connection Pascale Vielle asks whether a social Europe is possibly “an oxymoron” and his response does not exactly lend to any cheerfulness…Europe’s geopolitical position in the light of the current migration crisis is examined, as well as the social movement. The president of the Christian Workers Movement, Christian Kunsch, explains that now more than ever is the time to resist austerity but to do so creatively and propose possible alternatives. (MT)
*** GEORGIOS DERTILIS: Sept guerres, quatre guerres civiles, sept faillites, 1821-2016. Editions Polis (33 Eolou Street, GR-10551 Athens. Tel: (30-210) 3643382 – fax: 3636501 – Email: info@polis-ed.gr – Internet: http://www.polis-ed-gr ). 2016, 168 pp. €14. ISBN : 978-960-435-524-2.
Georgios Dertilis, is emeritus Professor of history at the University of Athens and has been elected director of studies at the school of Higher Education in Social Science in Paris. He is also guest lecturer at the universities of Harvard and Oxford and the European University Institute of Florence. In this publication he sheds light on “The events of a history of two centuries” which in Greece have often proved dramatic, even though that failures and different traumatic experiences, the scourge of poverty and deception, deadly civil wars… have been hidden and forgotten due to demagoguery. In this book, the author, on the contrary, seeks to provide his readers with the historical truths of their country so that they are therefore able to see what ready happened in Greece irrespective of whether this produces repulsion or remorse from the disagreeable duty of remembering and what this can lead to. For the author, what counts is that Greek citizens become aware of the causes of the six first disasters experienced by the country from 1824 to the present day, so that they are able to learn the lessons about the seventh and current lesson. He explains that it is also important that the Greek political leaders also acknowledge the mistakes committed so that this time, they can avoid another… civil war and refrain from the easy slide into demagoguery which, always ends up in an often concealed call for a dictatorship in the guise of a pseudo kind of parliamentarianism. This book delivers a powerful punch and calls for a real examination of conscience. (AKa)
*** ANASTASIOS-IOANNIS METAXAS (Editor) : La science politique, enquête interdisciplinaire et transversale sur le fonctionnement de la politique. Relations internationales : corrélations et dépendances (Vol 6). Editions Sideris (116 rue Solonos, GR-10681 Athens. Tel: (30-210) 3833434 – fax: 3832294 – Email: contact@isideris.gr). 2016, 492 p. €25. ISBN 978-960-08-0720-2.
This seventh volume of a 10-part study is entirely edited by Anastasios Metaxas, emeritus professor at the University of Athens and the Peloponnese. The different studies particularly examine the correlation and interdependency performed on the basis of international policy at a global level and which, consequently, are the decisive elements underpinning the international behaviour of state actors in either their conflictual ramifications or otherwise. (AKa)
*** MARIOS THRASIVOULOU : Le nationalisme des Chypriotes grecs. Les vues, les tendances et le rôle de la gauche. Editions Epikentro (9 rue Kamvounion, GR-54621 Salonika. Tel: (30-231) 0256146 – fax: 0256148 – Internet: http://www.epikentro.gr ). 2016, 392 pp. €18. ISBN 978-960-458-686-8.
The nationalism of Greek Cypriots and the way it has prevailed since the birth of this state until 1960, is at the heart of this book. Marios Thrasivoulou is an historian as well as an actor in the history itself in his role as a left-wing activist. He does not provide an exhaustive description of the main events characterising this history and instead analyses and interprets the events and facts he considers to have been crucial. Therefore he looks in turn at the different issues such as the nationalism that emerged during the Second World War, the culture of the right and the phenomenon of “ethnarchy” in the 1940s and 50s, as well as EOKA and its ideology, which leads him to identify the two tendencies of the Greek Cypriot right-wing nationalists that emerged during the years 1959-1960. He also pays particular attention to the weakness in the autonomous ideological and political expression of the bourgeoisie and working-class, which enabled “personalities” to play a preponderant role in the course of events. His reading of the cases involving Makarios and Grivas is particularly enlightening in this connection. The author also devotes a substantial part of the book to the influence exerted by Greece, mainly during the 1950s and which leads him to ask a number of questions regarding funding and whether Cyprus could have influenced Greek leaders and how they themselves encouraged the nationalism of the Greek Cypriots. The action taken by the Greek left in opposition to the nationalist movements in Cyprus is analysed in great detail. Finally, in the knowledge that the right has always been the leading force in the country and that it has had much greater responsibility in the subsequent tragedy in Cyprus, the author also seeks to clarify the position of Akel, the Cypriot Communist Party, that was faced with both the nationalist movement and the Turkish Cypriots. This is important because the left also played a role in the development of nationalism. Consequently, he tackles a question that has always been taboo and for that reason alone this book is certainly not without merit. (AKa)