*** JEAN-LOUIS GUIGOU, PIERRE BECKOUCHE: Afrique-Méditerranée-Europe. La Verticale de l’avenir. Editions Nevicata (42 av. du Général de Gaulle, B-1050 Brussels. Tel: (32-2) 6478378 – Email: info@editionsnevicata.be – Internet: http://www.editionsnevicata.be ). ‘L’âme des peuples’ series. 2017, 102 pp, €9. ISBN 978-2-8752-3111-6.
While they may not be spring chickens in their professional lives, Jean-Louis Guigou and Pierre Beckouche still fight as much for the future as ever they did. To ensure that this future is as good as it can possibly be, they do not hesitate to cross the mental borders dictated by short-sighted realism: in this small book on future prospects, they invite Europe, the Maghreb and Africa as a whole to draw up a common future together, as President Kennedy did in his own way in his speech in 1960 on the ‘New Border’ he was planning to give Americans.
Founders of the Institut de Prospective Economique du Monde Méditerranéen (http://www.ipemed.coop ) that aims to bring the two sides of the Mediterranean closer together, the two authors have the strong idea (a recent one in his case, explains Prof. Beckouche in the preface) that ‘one can no longer limit oneself to the EuroMed area without enlarging it to Africa.’ It is quite simply regional integration on the Vertical in this part of the world that is recommended here with method and passion. And integration here really does mean integration and certainly not ‘a kind of dilation of the European Union towards its South,’ but rather ‘a joint association of these three big geographical areas.’
Some might naturally be tempted to only see this invitation as simply utopia without any tangible future. Looking more closely, the two authors put forward quite robust arguments to rattle the readers’ scepticism and bring him/her to think that their ideas are not as unreasonable as they might appear. One would in fact reach the point instead of considering that not taking them into account would be quite unreasonable... For example, are they wrong to point out that taken vertically, this region includes both North and South in a global ‘quarter of an orange’ that includes ‘all the solutions for dealing with demographic, economic, technological, energy and climate transitions’? Are they wrong when they note that this grouping will represent a gigantic market of three billion individuals in 2050, namely ‘2 billion in sub-Saharan Africa where the middle classes are mushrooming, 500 million in countries on the South and East of the Mediterranean and 500 million in Europe’? Are they out of touch with reality when they argue that this big region ‘can provide prosperity and security for Europeans’ and, better still, that ‘Europe’s place in the world will require a successful integration with its South’?
Are Jean-Louis Guigou and Pierre Beckouche mistaken when they hint that opening up to their utopia would better protect Europeans from ‘poverty-stricken and climate migrants’, from radicalism and insecurity than the barbed wire that they currently like to surround themselves with? Isn’t this utopia, on the contrary, a pledge of progress and benefits for each of the regions concerned? Couldn’t Europeans stop their current practice of seeing their geographical environment simply from the viewpoint of regional free-trade and commit themselves without second thoughts to a partnership of equals in the name of ‘productive, inclusive and sustainable development,’ ‘positively overturning the phantom of the risk of invasion’ and consequently ‘returning to the path of confidence rather than taking cover behind barbed wire’? Wouldn’t South Mediterranean’s find in this vertical entente reasons, ways and means to ‘throttle the fascistic slippages of radical Islam’ and finally ‘turn their back on several centres of humiliation and decline’? With the immense riches of their continent, wouldn’t Africans then finally find a method to ensure them real economic and social development, even becoming ‘the locomotive of what could become the world’s leading region’? In these pages, the authors try to demonstrate that the ‘age of the big North-South regions’ has come and the G2 (United States-China) will not wait for Europeans and it would be wise for Europeans to dare to finally ‘respond to the world of Donald Trump’ by persuading themselves that the Mediterranean could give birth to a ‘European dragon’ if they would only agree to ‘project themselves towards the outside to find a dynamic within.’ There is no denying that they are convincing, as demonstrated by Miguel Angel Moratinos in an interview in the book, alongside comments by an economic representative of each of the two other areas.
Michel Theys
*** KOSTAS VERGOPOULOS: La nouvelle tourmente mondiale. Editions Gutemberg (37 rue Didotou, GR-10680 Athens. Tel: (30-210) 3642003 – Fax: 3642030 – Email: info@dardanosnet.gr). 2017, 229 pp, €9. ISBN 978-960-01-1857-5.
Lecturer in political economy at Sorbonne University (Paris VIII) and Pantheon University in Athens, but also an international expert for the United Nations and the European Union and a regular editorialist for a number of newspapers around the world, Prof. Kostas Vergopoulos opens his latest book with a stubborn fact: ‘The modern Greek tragedy, with its nightmarish dimensions these last seven years, can be rendered less bitter by the cruel spectacle of the rest of the world, particularly Europe with its irresistible perseverance on the road to ruin. This Greek, European and world impasse was unnecessary and remains ‘counter-productive’ for everyone.’ As the author explains, with the withdrawal of the United States and Great Britain from Europe and from globalisation, the world is not becoming more stable, flexible and indulgent, especially for small countries, but instead is becoming more merciless and unforgiving for all. Economic rivalries are tuning into geopolitical tensions for a greater intensity. the map of the world that prevails today is beyond international law, being based on bilateral power relations. In the chapters of his book, the author explains why globalisation is in an impasse, going on to compare the systems of European and Latin America. He devotes two chapters to the world nutritional crisis, explaining in turn how the question of nutrition is raised in the United States, the financialisation of food, the nutritional tsunami, climate change and how it impacts on food systems, and the question of nutrition in terms of the future of capitalism. The book includes useful tables comparing the economies of a number of countries around the world. (AKa)
*** APOSTOLIS FOTIADIS: Les commerçants des frontières. La nouvelle architecture de supervision européenne. Editions Potamos (48 rue Xenokratous, GR-10676 Athens. Tel: (30-210) 7231271 – Fax: 7254629 – Email: info@potamos.com.gr – Internet: http://www.potamos.com.gr ). 2016, 196 pp, €12. ISBN 978-960-545-053-3.
Official European migration policy is increasingly interpreted as a security issue and is closely linked to the rapid militarization of the European Union’s external borders. It is a doctrine which, according to the author of this book, has now been fully assimilated by European technocrats, its implementation being increasingly shaped to serve the interests of the military-industrial complex that manufactures security products and services. Freelance journalist specialising in European affairs and the Athens correspondent of Inter Press Service press agency, Apostolos Fotiadis is at pains to show how the Union acts in this direction, discerning among other things the grandiose and costly surveillance programmes for Europe’s borders, the institutionalised discrimination and the various techniques for shrugging off control of powers by the national and European levels. In his view, the absence of political and democratic control of the plans of a post-democratic élite is deeply disturbing and problematic. More shocking still is European citizens’ ignorance of what exactly is happening at Europe’s borders. Hence his decision to write this book to invite all European citizens to become better informed and commit to public debate so that security slippages can be ended... (AKa)
*** LOLA RAICH: Africa in 21st Century US and EU Agendas. A Comparative Analysis. Peter Lang (42 Schlüterstraße, D-10707 Berlin, Germany. Tel: (49-30) 232567900 – Fax: 232567902 – Email: order@peterlang.com – Internet: http://www.peterlang.com ). ‘Internationale Sicherheit’ series, No. 11. 2016, 250 pp, €42, £34, $54.95. ISBN 978-3-631-67247-1.
How has the African continent featured within the EU and USA foreign policy agendas since 2000? Are there any gaps between a rhetoric that claimed to have put Africa high on the political agenda and reality? If yes, what are the reasons for it? What place did peace and security with regard to Africa take within the foreign policies of EU and USA? Why were the peace and security policies of the LU – so criticised by the United States – and the Joint African-European Union Strategic Partnership acknowledged so differently, though both policies aim for the same: support for Africa in tackling their own security concerns? The United States and the European Union having chosen a different approach, which has proved to be the more appropriate for the African context and offered pragmatic solutions? How have these policies been implemented so far? These are some of the questions to which political scientist Lola Raich, who now lectures at Vienna University, provides answers in this book, which follows on from a doctoral thesis. (PBo)
*** MARILENA KOPPA: La politique commune de sécurité et de défense. L'histoire, les institutions, les stratégies. 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. 2017, 376 pp, €18.80. ISBN 978-960-16-7246-5.
What is the Common European Security and Defence Policy? What shape did it take until the Lisbon Treaty and what obstacles did it encounter? What tools does it have at its disposal and how does it relate to NATO? How does the European Union see its role in the international system? Is it a huge market more than anything else or does it want to become an international player? What are the implications of the choices it raises? It is to these questions and plenty more besides that Prof. Marilena Koppa (Department of International and European Studies at Pantheon University) provides answers in this book. The author was elected as an MEP for the Pasok party from 2003 to 2009 and here examines the role of the European institutions in this policy and the main challenges it has to face. She also examines how the Union is drawing up a coherent defence strategy adapted to an ever faster changing world. She concludes that the Common Security and Defence Policy is now an important aspect of European integration, the aim being to ensure, over time, autonomy for the Union’s decisions and actions in this domain that is key to sovereignty. The policy has a difficult path to follow and the author says there is no guarantee that it will be possible to lead it safely to its intended destination. (AKa)
*** VASSILIOS KASKARELIS: La tempête parfaite. L’Otan après le 11 septembre. Editions Metaixmio (118 rue Ippokratous, GR-11472 Athens. Tel: (30-211) 3003500 – Fax: 3003562 – Email: metaixmio@metaixmio.gr – Internet: http://www.metaixmio.gr ). 2017, 372 pp, €17.70. ISBN 978-618-03-0839-6.
Economist and political scientist Vassilis Kaskarelis has been a Greek diplomat since 1974. During his career, he has been posted to many of the planet’s hotspots. Named diplomat of the year in 2011 by the World Affairs Council, it was nevertheless the years he spent in... Brussels from 2000 to 2004 that marked him the most. ‘With breathtaking events almost every day, the four years spent as Greece’s Permanent Representative to NATO were professionally very demanding and, at the same time, extremely interesting and hectic. I dare say that in particular, the three years 2001-2003 changed the world as we knew it until that epoch. The terrorist attacks of 11 September changed everything. They introduced new asymmetrical threats, new international balances, new ways of thinking and new policies, new methods in diplomatic relations and responding to crises. In a word, they overturned all previously known situations. In addition, they created and strengthened reactionary and subversive forces, particularly in the Arab world, with sustained, highly negative effects that were are experiencing today.’ In this book, Ambassador Kaskarelis shares how he lived through these four years that changed the world. He analyses the principles and practices of international diplomacy, Greece’s priorities, the burden of events and the importance of the people responsible for managing them. In a direct and concise style, the author transports us to the corridors of grand diplomacy, shedding some light on how the major international organisation that is NATO operates and exposing and analysing the factors that have shaped current reality. (AKa)