*** MICHEL CATALA, STANISLAS JEANNESSON, ANNE-SOPHIE LAMBLIN-GOURDIN (Eds.): L’Europe des citoyens et la citoyenneté européenne. Evolutions, limites et perspectives. Peter Lang (32 Hochfeldstrasse, CH-3012 Berne. Tél.: (41-32) 3761717 – Fax: 3761727 – Email: info@peterlang.com – Internet: http://www.peterlang.com ). ‘Dynamiques citoyennes en Europe’ series. 2016, 457 pp, €82.50, £66, $107.95. ISBN 978-3-0343-2007-8.
A quotation and a paradox illustrate the pertinence of this book emerging from a colloquium held two-and-a-half years ago at Nantes University in France. In the introduction, Prof. Michel Catala (who lectures in history at Nantes University) and Anne-Sophie Lamblin-Gourdin (reader in public law at Université de Bretagne-Sud) recall Henri Brugmans who, at The Hague Conference in May 1948, said that a ‘European political opinion’ would be indispensable for ensuring the democratic legitimacy of the European federal project that he was calling for. The man who would become the first rector of the College of Europe in Bruges went on: ‘And this European political opinion will not be formed by adding up national opinions, but rather from a sui generis element, a new phenomenon in history, a sustained coming to awareness of actually being European, the discovery of a common citizenship.’ As for the paradox, it is raised by Arnaud Leclerc in the conclusions he draws at the end of the book, noting that 2013 was proclaimed by the European institutions the ‘Year of Citizenship’ but nobody ‘dared to celebrate the twenty years of European citizenship’ that became a reality on 1 January 1993 when the Maastricht Treaty came into force.
It is to the task of measuring the road taken since the launch of European citizenship, gauging the way citizens have taken ownership of it and, more widely, verifying the role that has been recognised for European citizens within the framework of the Union by national and European authorities that the twenty-eight academic experts from a range of different disciplines brought together here get down to in this book. The first section starts by examining citizenship in the history of the European ideal and European unification, from between the world wars until the start of the 1990s. A useful exercise taking in, among others, the paths of Julien Benda, Coudenhove-Kalergi, Thomas Mann, Raymond Aron, Jean Monnet and Altiero Spinelli. Bertrand Vayssière points out about the latter two that they didn’t like each other very much: ‘Jean Monnet had the great merit of building Europe and the great blame of building it badly,’ Spinelli is said to have observed, and the historian from the Université de Toulouse Le Mirail also evokes the ‘curious paradox of a father who is not recognised by his own children,’ meaning the French. The four following sections see the authors address the constitution of a European citizenship, its successes and limits, from a number of angles, viz. law, public policies, political participation and, finally, public spaces and debates. It includes particularly enlightening examinations of ‘the role of language learning policy in the building of European citizenship’ and well-felt critical analysis of subsidies granted by the Union without a European radio emerging that is worthy of the name.
The section that generates the most intellectual pleasure in this book is the final chapter by Arnauld Leclerc. Preceding a transcription of exchanges at a round table that brought together Profs Gérard Bossuat and Jean-Marc Ferry on the theme of Which citizenship(s) for which Europe?, this contribution looks at ‘European citizenship in times of crisis.’ The man who lectures in political science at Nantes University calls a spade a spade, to put it mildly, when he describes a Europe crisis ‘that goes beyond – far beyond – solely the economic dimension,’ the true problem being ‘that Europe has run out of imagination,’ and ‘no longer feels or sees itself as a project.’ This Europe that generates ‘exasperation and despair,’ including among the ranks of its traditional aficionados, feeds into Euroscepticism of course, or even Europhobia, which could be positive because, as historian Bernard Bruneteau pointed out at the round table, this could be interpreted as ‘a component of active European citizenship.’ What is particularly serious, however, is the fact that Europe is going through ‘a crisis, above all, of meaning, in other words, a crisis of the purpose of its political project.’ Arnauld Leclerc uses implacably tough words to criticise the decisions that have been taken by the authorities during the heart of the crisis ‘on the quiet, bypassing public debate,’ and imposing on the European Union no less than a ‘democratic regression.’ So is there any point asking why European citizenship is today at half-mast? Michel Theys
*** CORINNE DORIA, GERARD RAULET (Eds.): L’espace public européen en question / Questioning the European Public Sphere. Histoire et méthodologie / An Historical and Methodological Approach. Presses Interuniversitaires Européennes/Peter Lang (1 av. Maurice, B-1050 Brussels. Tel: (41-32) 3761717 – Fax: 3761717 – Email: info@peterlang.com – Internet: http://www.peterlang.com ). ’Pour une histoire nouvelle de l’Europe; series, No. 1. 2016, 225 pp, €45, £36, $58.95. ISBN 978-2-87574-288-9.
The fact that Robert Schuman, Jean Monnet and the other ‘founding fathers’ had the true project of creating in Europe ‘a common cultural area, recognised as such by citizens,’ is obvious to people who agree to look at history without nationalist blinkers. One has to note, however, with the editors of this book, that States resisted this and that ‘over the past sixty hears, Europe has essentially been built as a political, legal and economic area.’ However, the historians, sociologists and lawyers brought together in these pages after meeting physically at an event organised in Paris in 2014 as part of a research project entitled: ‘Writing a new history of Europe / Ecrire une histoire nouvelle de l’Europe,’ are sure that a European public area is genuinely being configured, which justifies that one should try to work out the ins and outs of its nature and scope. In the introductory chapter, historians Corinne Doria and Gérard Raulet, both working at Université Paris 1 – Panthéon Sorbonne (Ms Doria also lecturing at Università degli Studi in Milan) begin by very usefully pointing out how the public area is a polysemic notion that has different meanings in different epochs and different scientific domains. They demonstrate that the notion of a ‘European public area’ is subject to different and even divergent interpretations, some seeing in it traces of the ‘Republic of Letters’ of earlier centuries, others claiming that such an area has never existed; some judging that it doesn’t yet exist but is ‘bound to appear sooner or later,’ although this is refuted by those who feel that a ‘common language is lacking, as is a European identity that is actually felt by citizens.’ The authors are at pains to provide a little clarity on this subject, four of them initially explaining the sociological, politicological and legal tools that are used to understand the issue. Three contributions then show how the premises of the contemporary conception of the European public area took shape in the ‘century of nationalities’ that was the nineteenth century, thanks notably to the action of Joseph de Maistre. In the fourth part, the European awareness is compared and contrasted with the dimensions of the experienced world, notably the war in Algeria, and the fifth and final section invites readers to carry out a similar exercise current debate on behalf of the environment and rejecting nuclear power. (MT)
*** PAOLO BIANCHINI, ROBERTO SANI (Eds.): Textbooks and Citizenship in Modern and Contemporary Europe. Peter Lang (32 Hochfeldstraße, CH-3012 Bern. Tel: (41-32) 3761717 – Fax: 3761727 – Email: info@peterlang.com – Internet: http://www.peterlang.com ). 2016, 217 pp, €57.50, £46, $74.95. ISBN 978-3-0343-1335-3.
Focusing on the production and use of school textbooks in a number of countries (mostly Italy, but also Spain, Greece, Romania and Turkey) in various periods, the essays brought together in this book shed light on a number of important moments in the evolution of textbooks. In this way, the authors allow readers to gain better understanding of how the content of school subjects has been used to influence pupils at various levels of education. In this way, they also show that school decidedly remains one of the most powerful means of training and guidance. (PBo)
*** ANTONIS ANDROULIDAKIS: Les aspects socio-psychologiques de la crise grecque. Editions Nissides (3 rue Desperai, GR-54621 Thessalonica. Tel: (30-231) 0236575 – Email: info@nissides.gr – Internet: http://www.nissides.gr ). 2016, 212 pp, €12.72. ISBN 978-618-5228-05-7.
Why hasn’t Greece created itself and why isn’t it allowed to do so? Why has the crisis brought it to existential resignation, or close to it at least? What was the anthropological profile that dominated Greece after the end of the dictatorship (in 1974)? What was the new role of the family, mothers in particular, and how did autonomy contribute to the deficit? How did Greeks make the most of their national handicap before being caught in the trap of an invisible collective defeat? What is the real collective traumatism affecting them today? Are there fundamental incompatibilities between Greek lifestyle and the contemporary world? Is Europeanism a childhood disease of Hellenism, were Greeks brought to cultivate a Western character that doesn’t suit them? How did the euro syndrome pave the way for an authoritarian normalisation and how might the crisis psychologically affect future generations? Can memorandums lead to a psychological dependency and, above, all, why have they left people without much of a reaction? How can the country put human rights (the rights of mankind) on a pedestal when Greek men have been ‘walked all over’? What are the basic elements of modern Greek collegiality and is it possible to respond to Western instrumental rationality with ‘love’? Finally, is it permitted that the current impasse will promise a few benefits in the future? These are the main questions to which answers are provided in this book by a philosopher-psychotherapist who promoted the concepts of humanisation of the organisation of work and municipalism as foundations of a new cultural model. (AKa)
*** ANDREAS ANDRIANOPOULOS: La liberté narrative. Cri d'angoisse pour l'avenir. Editions Epikentro (9 rue Kamvounion, GR-54621 Thessalonica. Tel: (30-231) 0256146 – Fax: 0256148 – Internet: http://www.epikentro.gr ). 2016, 296 pp, €16. ISBN 978-960-458-660-8.
In order to escape from the current budget impasse, are there other solutions than those imposed on Greece? Far from the Statism that helped plunge Greeks into a socio-economic nightmare without name, there are options that can pave the way for a new period of growth and prosperity. Why are they not being promoted by the Greek political world? Quite simply, because they do not suit the clienteles of the parties which have colonised the public sector of the economy in order to influence public opinion. In this book, a political scientist who was on several occasions a minister in governments including New Democracy carefully and understandably analyses most of the underlying causes of the impasse before formulating a few simple solutions that he feels are reasonable and achievable. He also addresses subjects such as the refugee problem – in the light of the weaknesses of the Greek state, and also of Europe at a whole – and the Islamic challenge that is now hitting at the heart of European society. Andreas Andrianopoulos explains that he designed the book to act as a wake-up call for people and invite them to think of Greece’s future, calling all readers to set about understanding the causes of the tragedy and to take action over and above their individual political beliefs and sensibilities. (Aka)