*** ANNE DRUMAUX, PAUL JOYCE: Strategic Management for Public Governance in Europe. Palgrave Macmillan (The Campus, 4 Crinan Street, London, N1 9XW, UK. Tél.: (44-20) 78334000 – Internet: http://www.palgrave.com ). “Governance and Public Management” series. 2018, 255 pp. €121.89 (e-book: €95.19). ISBN 978-1-137-54763-7.
This book stems from the academic interest shown for an idea shared by two of its authors, “the governments of the European Union needed to be more effective in their pursuit of economic and social development” and that to this end, they have “to become more strategic” in their approach and that this has to be focused on the long-term. It is with the goal of verifying whether this is effectively the case within the European Union that Professor Anne Drumaux (co-director of Public Management research at the Solvay Brussels School in Economics and Management) and researcher Paul Joyce (Institute of Local Government Studies at the University of Birmingham) seek to provide a detailed qualitative analysis of the action taken by the governments of the member states in the context of the EUROPE 2020 Strategy that followed the Lisbon Strategy. The result of their thoroughgoing research, which is backed up by a strong scientific approach, provides a merciless justification of the doubts harboured by many different observers in this respect…
The authors' approach is characterised by public management science and in this connection, their use of the tools and instruments used to interpret the strategic texts as 'narratives' that make sense of the practice of public governance. They also tackle the question of the delivery of strategy through European Council and Commission documents, member states' national reforms plans and internal strategic documents at the level of the directorates-general. Finally, they also utilise a software known as Alceste, which enables them to provide a lexicometric assessment of strategic documents. Therefore, scientifically “armed", they proceed to verify whether a new kind of public governance has been set up at a level of the Union and its member states and whether this new governance organised through “strategic states" has delivered better results at economic and environmental levels, as well as with regard to the quality of life of its citizens. They also seek to establish whether economic governance within the Union has been coherent and integrated and attempt to gauge the credibility of the different actors involved in European governance.
Over the course of their eight chapters, Anne Drumaux and Paul Joyce demonstrate that this is far from the case. In this connection, President Juncker himself revealed to the European Parliament in 2016 that economic governance as an aspect of the European Union, left a lot to be desired because it is patently obvious that there is “a lack of common ground" or cooperation between the member states. The study confirms what Mr Juncker was quite right to argue, that, “unity behind a strategic purpose was mainly absent”. Why was this therefore the case? The heads of state and government in the countries of the Union find themselves on the benches of the accused and, “It seems likely that the more the European Council members defined themselves as champions of their country's national interests, the more difficult would it have been for the Council to act as strategic leaders either in relation to the Lisbon Strategy or the EUROPE 2020 Strategy”. The Commission has indeed attempted to call for a fully European perspective but “strategic fragmentation" has ultimately prevailed and it is true that the resulting “diversity" stems from the fact of that each member state has its own agenda and priorities, which was likely, “to make the possibility of a strategy for the whole of the European Union unworkable”. It is obvious that the lesson to draw from this detailed qualitative study are too many to be effectively resumed in this single observation. This is why reading this book will be both invaluable and essential for those in Brussels or in government and for them to evaluate whether they really are determined to implement a long-term strategy that does not become the plaything of short-term national appetites and which does indeed serve the real interests of European citizens. It is therefore important that economic governance does become political, that it is not subject to a technocratic straitjacket and that it also resonates with the expectations and objections of its citizens. What it does need, even if the authors do not say anything in this regard, are binding objectives and if this is not the case it will in the very long-term still remain prisoner to narrow national interests and selfishness and therefore more of a fantasy than a real project.
Michel Theys
*** VASSILIS LIOSSIS: Les problèmes tactiques et stratégiques. La relation dialectique entre patriotisme et classe sociale, national et international, attaque et défense, réforme et révolution. Editions Kapsimi (55-57 rue Zoodochou Pigis, GR-10681 Athens. Tel: (30-210) 3813838 – fax: 3839713 – Email: info@kapsimi.gr – Internet: http://www.kapsimi.gr ). 2017, 298 pp. €.13.50 ISBN 978-618-5156-31-2.
Vassilis Liossis is a mathematician and editorialist for several Greek newspapers. In this book he argues that Greece has been dependent upon the European Union for years, as well as the European Monetary Fund and the country's domestic oligarchy. The result of this is that today, the working classes are being intolerably crushed. Since the first memorandum and loan agreement granted by the European partners, the workers have been subject to a kind of torture, which is nowhere near ending, given that the current coalition government between Syriza and Anel has systematically pursued the policy of previous governments. The author also contends that from the beginning of the global crisis of 2008 global capitalism decided to resolve its internal contradictions. New alliances are therefore emerging and a certain form of protectionism is winning ground, with intra-imperialist and intra-capitalist contradictions bursting onto the scene, with their resulting wars. In this particular phase of history, certain social and political forces have realised that they need to resist and that it is necessary to think about developing another kind of social structure, as well as coordinate their approaches in order to give this structure life. The author also emphasises that this also requires, as a preliminary, that they develop some sort of idea of strategy and tactics and that they revisit a number of historic experiences in order to learn the lessons from them. (AKa)
*** CELINE SCHOEN: L’Europe des citoyens. « Une nouvelle feuille de route politique pour l’Europe ». Le Cherche-Midi (23 rue du Cherche-Midi, F-75006 Paris. Tel: (41-32) 42227120 – fax: 45440838 – Email: infos@cherche-midi.com – Internet: http://www.cherche-midi.com ). “Documents” series. 2017, 142 pp. €14. ISBN 978-27491-5506-7.
This book (which has been collecting dust on the shelves of being European Library (Bibliothèque européenne for far too long) is in fact quite up-to-date given that it focuses on the still undecided future of the European Union. It stems from an initiative by a French non-governmental organisation, L’Europe des citoyens, which set itself the noble task of bringing citizens closer to the European idea. To this end, Céline Schoen, a journalist, is conferred with the task of bringing together the substantial amount of ideas developed in the exchanges organised between four MEPs of French nationality during the four sessions of the European Parliament in September-November 2016. The insight provided by Nathalie Griesbeck (ALDE), Françoise Grossetête (Vice president of the European People's Party), Michèle Rivasi (Greens/ EFA) and Edouard Martin about the enduring crises in Europe and ways to overcome them are obviously the expression of different political sensibilities but they do, nonetheless, converge on the main points: the will to make a regenerated Union the matrix of future solutions rather than the scapegoat of the problems of the moment. The 10 concrete proposals formulated testify to their commitment in this connection. Their appeal in favour of a more efficient Europe that is reconciled with its citizens (also with a more acknowledged important role of the European Parliament…) is unfortunately tarnished in these pages by a number of very “Franco-French” imprecisions such as, for example, “the first misgivings about the creation of a political union go back to the very beginnings of economic union”, which throws a rather too prudish veil over the rejection in 1954 by the French National Assembly of the European defence community and the European Political Community that was supposed to complete this initiative. (MT)
*** The Federalist Debate. Papers on Federalism in Europe and the World. The Einstein Center for International Studies (26 via Schina, I-10144 Torino. Tel/fax: (+39-011) 4732843 – Email: info@federalist-debate.org – Internet: http://www.federalist-debate.org ). 2017, No. 2, 64 pp. Annual subscription: €15 / Internet: €8.
A number of important ideas are presented in this edition of this crucial federalist publication. In the editorial, Lucio Levi focuses on the way in which the European Union should behave in defence of democratic values. He explains that these are threatened by the member states that are now incapable of tackling the fundamental contradiction of our times, “the gap between an economy that has become global and politics, which remains national”. The editor-in-chief of this publication subsequently and very lucidly points out that “the goals of public good and general interest are pushed to the margins of political life and sacrificed to private interests”, which effectively means that democracy is in danger of becoming “an empty shell”. In his view there is an imperative need for the Union, which “remains the only advocate of Western values” to take action so that the international organisations: United Nations, World Trade Organisation, World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are strengthened and, above all, “subject to democratic control”, failing which, globalisation will destroy democracy…Levi therefore calls for the Eurozone to be given a single seat are the International Monetary Fund and that France “Europeanises” the seat it has on the Security Council. Particular mention should also be made with regard to the fact that this issue contains the ideas propounded by Professor Mario Telò about the right way of introducing the indispensable differentiation required for relaunching the dynamics of European integration because this political scientist argues that, "in the current context, the status quo would be a suicide, a further decline in the effectiveness and legitimacy of the EU”. The Spanish federalist, Domènec Ruiz Devesa, looks at what could be an effective way of advancing on the path of an ever closer Union. The economist, Bernard Barthalay, provides a clarifying interpretation of what “brand Macron” could mean for Europe now that the French, after voting for him, have admitted that the “no vote" to the Constitutional treaty was not a “no" to Europe but indeed a call for a different kind of Europe that is less a prisoner, for example, of the austerity driven obsessions of Mr Schäuble and the egotistical posturings of Germany. (MT)
*** CLAUDIA LESKIEN: Operation Welcome. How Strasbourg Remained a Seat of European Institutions, 1949-1979. Presses Interuniversitaires Européennes / Peter Lang (41 av. Maurice, B-1050 Brussels. Tel: (41-32) 3761717 – fax: 3761727 – Email: brussels@peterlang.com and order@peterlang.com – Internet: http://www.peterlang.com )."Multiple Europes” series, No. 55. 2016, 330 pp. €48, £38, $62.95. ISBN 978-2-87574-316-9.
This book stems from a PhD thesis in European studies at the University of Aarhus and sheds light on the artisans working in the shadows that helped turn Strasbourg into a European capital city. Rather than dwell on the inter-governmental decisions that are responsible for designating these capital cities, Claudia Leskien focuses on the action taken by local workers to consolidate the role subsequently devolved to the Alsatian Metropolitan city since the Council of Europe was set up there in 1949 and the sessions that would shortly follow for the Parliamentary Assembly of the European Community of Coal and Steel in 1952 and those of the European Parliament elected by direct universal suffrage in 1979. This book does not deal with the debates that led to these roles being allocated but rather, which is far more original, the way in which the local actors identified were engaged in an undertaking to consolidate the European vocation of this city close to Germany and to update the activities and strategies they developed to this end. The way in which the author has trawled through the archives of the city and region of the Lower Rhine enables her to identify and meticulously analyse three major aspects of this "European investment", namely, the measures taken to provide the best facilities for hosting MEPs during the parliamentary sessions, the optimisation of the transport network and infrastructure construction. This study has also helped to confirm that Pierre Pflimlin, the mayor of Strasbourg from 1959 to 1983 before becoming a president of the European Parliament from 1984 to 1987, was indeed a major actor in the consolidation of this sustained European vocation. The author also demonstrates in her book, however, that he was not the only major actor to work towards defending Strasbourg’s cause and ensuring its credibility. (PBo)
*** STEPHANOS ANAGNOSTOU: Le cauchemar de la faillite et le gouvernement de George Papandreou (2009-2011). Editions Livanis (98 rue Solonos, GR-10680 Athens. Tel: (30-210) 3661200 – fax: 3617791 – Email: webmaster@livanis.gr – Internet: http://www.livanis.gr ). 2017, 416 pp. €16.50. ISBN 978-960-14-3158-1.
In this book, the journalist and editor in chief of several Greek economic newspapers, Stephanos Anagnostou, seeks to demonstrate the way in which the Greek economy has evolved between the general elections of 4 October 2009, which saw the election victory of Pasok under George Papandreou, until the time he resigned from his post as Prime Minister in November 2011. The book is exclusively constructed on real data, such as the official documents, letters, press releases and declarations made by the protagonists from this period, with all of them containing chronological references. The author explains that he therefore sought to enable readers to understand why and how the country has been led to almost total bankruptcy and the way in which they will in the future be able to assess the electoral promises made to them by the new candidates in power. (AKa)