*** CHRISTIAN DEBLOCK, JOEL LEBULLENGER (Eds.): Génération TAFTA. Les nouveaux partenariats de la mondialisation. Editions Presses universitaires de Rennes (Saic Edition, Université Rennes 2, 2 av. Gaston Berger, Bâtiment Germaine-Tillion, F-35043 Rennes Cedex. Tel: (33-2) 99141401 – Fax: 99141407 – Email: pur@univ-rennes2.fr – Internet: http://www.pur-editions.fr ). 2018, 351 pp, €26. ISBN 978-2-7535-7325-3.
‘The problem is neoliberal globalisation,’ commented Philippe Lamberts recently, who is president of the Greens group at the European Parliament, to explain the populist and extremist surge being experienced by Europe and European citizens’ désamour with their EU. This says that the debate about the EU's commercial model and its framework of laws is not about to end, after the free-trade treaties, like the one (destined for failure) with the United States or the one with Canada, provoked an unprecedented general outcry within European society and regional powers. Without precedent because trade agreements have changed, ‘leaving the beaten paths of traditional negotiation and entering the sensitive world of international regulatory cooperation,’ we read in this collection of multidisciplinary essays. Twenty-four academics cast their expert eye over the new category of mega-transnational agreements like the Transpacific Partnership, the Transatlantic Partnership or the Global Regional Economic Partnership, through world powers (respectively the United States, the European Union and China) position themselves on the commercial chessboard.
‘If we don’t write the trade rules, China will,’ said Barack Obama, as Jean-Baptiste Velut recalls in the book’s opening chapter, ‘The Birth, Decline and Persistence of New Regionalism.’ Under the impulse of the democratic president, anxious to swing towards Asia and encircle Peking, the upheaval of trade deals came from the United States, which today even under the guidance of Donald Trump, recommends anachronistic protectionism and ‘threatens the future of trans-regionalism, the structure of international trade and the role of guarantor of the liberal order’ played by Washington. But the Americans risk finding themselves ‘ironically constrained by the rules of the game for trade that they themselves drew up,’ given the ‘domino effect’ of this new type of partnerships. The United States set the key and Europe too changed its tune in 2006 to avoid being left out, inaugurating a brand new phase in commercial bilateralism with the United States, Canada, Japan and emerging Asian countries, as we read in the writings of Prof. Mario Telo, ‘The European Union, faced with a raft of inter-regional trade interconnections and their political implications,’ and Joël Lebullenger, ‘European diplomacy faced with the de-configuration of trade in the Asia-Pacific geographical area.’ Moreover, it is in fine the Europeans who determined the speed of the ‘choreography of international economic negotiations,’ note, Yan Cimon, Erik Duchesne and Richard Ouellet, attempting to find out ‘Who leads the dance?’ even if the European Union is finding it difficult to benefit from the US turning-in given its political and institutional weaknesses and the ‘existential crisis’ it is going through.
Whether Donald Trump likes it or not, the emergence and multiplication of a new type of partnership is a stubborn fact – although ‘the resilience of the international liberal order is not necessarily synonymous with survival of the transregionalism model,’ notes Jean-Baptiste Velut. Bilateralism having shown its limits, the new trade agreements aim to be plurilateral, in order to provide more coherence in the ‘noodle soup’ of free-trade agreements. Over and above extending the scope of negotiation to cover a vast range of subjects from trade services to e-commerce, neither do these new agreements try to integrate the economic areas, but rather to ensure their interconnection and interoperability, bringing their regulatory systems closer to one another. Demanded by companies impatient to shake off the diversity of regulations and administrative practices incompatible with an interconnected world, harmonisation and mutual recognition of the rules among trade partners nevertheless soon clashed with the weight of established practices and revived the conflict of democracy and capitalism.
‘Public opinion seems to have gauged the importance of these new forms of agreements, which will necessarily affect the drawing up of law within the EU and its member states,’ observes Cécile Rapoport. We all remember Friday 21 October 2016, when the future of European trade policy, the credibility of the EU as a negotiating partner and the nature of relations between Europe and Canada played out not in Brussels, but 65 km away in the stronghold of the Walloon government, which refused to give its go-ahead to the AECG – a textbook case dealt with transversally in this book. A logical reaction since ‘the enlargement of markets pursued by the free-trade agreements ignores the legitimate needs and fundamental rights of the consumer,’ concludes Thierry Bourgnogne in the book’s final chapter on ‘desired but forgotten consumers.’ Hence, if the EU doesn’t want to become ‘a marginal actor in the History of the Twenty-first Century,’ the authors brought together in this book call for ‘a model of transregionalism to be found that is as ambitious in terms of inclusion and fairness as the new generation of agreements has been at the geographical and regulatory level.’
Maria Udrescu
*** MARISE CREMONA (Ed.): Structural Principles in EU External Relations Law. Hart Publishing (Kemp House, Chawley Park, Cumnor Hill, Oxford, OX2 9PH, UK. Tel: (44-1865) 517530 – Fax: 510710 – Email: mail@hartpub.co.uk – Internet: http://www.hartpub.co.uk ). 2018, 323 pp, £70. ISBN 978-1-78225-997-8.
This book confirms it: in the EU member states, the executives have power over foreign policy and international relations; in the European Union itself, however, they have to deal with the European Court of Justice. This is one of the major lessons that the twelve contributors to this book lay out in analysing the major structures upon which the European judges rely for preventing member states from acting as they please. As Prof. Cremona (European University Institute in Florence) indicates in the introduction, the Court of Justice thus exercises thanks to these principles ‘a formidable role in the governance of EU external action despite its hands-off approach to substantive policy choice.’
This fact is highlighted in several ways including analyses of ‘the principle of full, crippled and split conferral of powers post-Lisbon,’ of ‘subsidiarity as a structural principle governing the use of EU external competences,’ ‘the member states’ obligations of sincere cooperation, solidarity and unity,’ the question de whether ‘diplomatic secret’ has a chance of surviving in the age of Twitter, ‘the rule of law as a relational principle structuring the Union’s action towards its external Partners,’ all punctuated by the comment that the principle of autonomy bears witness to ‘an adolescent disease of EU external relations law.’ This all makes a very enlightening book. (PBo)
*** Les Cahiers du témoignage chrétien. Supplement to issue 3782 of ‘Témoignage chrétien.’ Abo Press / Témoignage chrétien (19 rue de l’Industrie, BP 90053, F-67402 Illkirch cedex, France. Tel: (33-3) 88662619 – Email: temoignagechretien@abopresse.com). Summer 2018, 130 pp. Annual subscription (47 weekly newsletters and 4 ‘Cahiers’): €120.
Now headed by historian and feminist Christine Pedotti, this issue of Les Cahiers du témoignage chrétien looks at the question of whether or not it is appropriate to challenge globalisation. Is deglobalisation the key to humanity’s future? Is protectionism recommendable, and if so, in what form? These are questions to which liberal economist Nicolas Bouzou and another-worldist Bernard Cassen provide necessarily contradictory answers, the latter participant taking advantage of the opportunity to attack the European Union, which he accuses of having become ‘an active agent of liberal globalisation’ and therefore ‘a model of confiscation of citizens’ capacity to intervene and a model of negation of democratic control.’ Another speaker is Daniel Cohn-Bendit who, ‘50 years after’ May 68, observes that ‘Europe smashes the traditional left-right division’ since ‘the sovereignty of the Unruly is identical to that of Marine Le Pen.’ In his view, the great fracture to be expected in the next European elections will therefore oppose ‘national sovereignty and European sovereignty.’ This issue also contains a special report on feminism and looks at the state of segregation in Donald Trump’s United States. (MT)
*** Futuribles. L’anticipation au service de l’action. Futuribles Sarl (47 rue de Babylone, F-75007 Paris. Tel: (33-1) 53633770 – Fax: 42226554 – Email: revue@futuribles.com – Internet: http://www.futuribles.com ). May-June 2018, No. 424, 128 pp, €22. Annual subscription: €115. ISBN 978-2-84387-437-6.
Alongside a substantial special report on higher education in France, this issue of the French future prospects review headed by Hugues de Jouvenel sees Jean-François Drevet devote his customary ‘Tribune européenne’ to the European Neighbourhood Policy. This former European Commission official starts by pointing out that the policy was designed by a team of his former colleagues as an alternative to new requests to join the EU. However, ‘this virtuous approach didn’t work’ since, as Steven Blockmans says, it ‘was designed for functioning in fair weather,' but the weather conditions suddenly worsened in several countries of its immediate neighbourhood. It had dreamed it up in order to anchor and strengthen democracy, but now has to ‘defend it on its own territory in the face of rising populism and authoritarian temptations’ manifesting in some of its member states. Consequently, the author underlines the need to review the modalities for exercising this policy and proposes ways of adapting it to changes in the EU's geographical and strategic environment, which leads him among other things to judge that the neighbourhood policy can no longer be ’a substitute for setting up a veritable common policy’ on migration. (MT)
*** CHARALAMBOS TARSANIDIS, ASTERIS CHOULIARAS: Diplomatie économique. Comment la Grèce a été touchée. Editions Papazisi (2 rue Nikitara, GR-10678 Athens. Tel: (30-210) 3822496 – Fax: 3809020 – Email: papazisi@otenet.gr – Internet: www. papazisi.gr). 2018, 376 pp, €16.96. ISBN 978-960-02-3380-3.
It has become evident that in today’s international reality, a country’s negotiating power is increasingly a function of its economic power. Equally, it is a healthy economy that largely allows the development of an effective foreign policy. In this study, Charalambos Tsardanidis (director of the Institute of International Economic Relations and professor at Pantheon University in Athens) and Prof. Asteris Chouliaras (Department of Political Science and International Relations of the University of the Peloponnesus) analyse economic diplomacy, focusing on the following themes: the concept of economic diplomacy over the course of its development; commercial and financial diplomacy; business-to-business relations and diplomacy connected to the business world; the resources used by economic democracy, such as economic sanctions, economic development aid and flows of finance. The authors also examine multilateral economic diplomacy within international organisations and regional cooperation before looking at changes observed in the organisation and functioning of economic diplomacy and their implications for decision-making in the field of foreign policy. The focus here is put in particular on the organisation of Greek economic diplomacy. The final assessment looks specifically at Greek economic diplomacy towards countries in the Balkans from 1989 to 2008. (AKa)
*** CHRISTOPHER HILL: La politique étrangère au 21ème siècle en Europe et dans le monde. Editions Universitaires de Crète (100 rue N. Plastira, B. P 1385, GR-71110 Heraklion. Tel: (30-281) 0391097 – Fax: 0391085 – Email: info@cup.gr – Internet: http://www.cup.gr ). 2018, 488 pp, €20. ISBN 978-960-524-509-2.
Foreign policy reveals how different societies interact, sometimes in opposition to each other and sometimes managing to cooperate, including on a regular basis. At the same time, foreign policy considers countries in a state of permanent warfare to preserve their independence and autonomy of action but at the same time limited in their action because of the influence of their external environment. This book aims to be a decoding of all aspects comprising foreign policy, while covering a wide span of history and geography, relying on empirical material and the vast theoretical corpus that produced analysis of foreign policy and the general discipline of international relations. Professor of international relations at the University of Cambridge after teaching at the London School of Economics and receiving the title of doctor honoris causa from the Political Science and International Relations Department of the University of the Peloponnesus, Christopher Hill designed it to help readers understand the diversity of the international system and the multicultural character of many modern societies and to correctly understand concepts such as the Cold War and the infamous ‘new world order’ of the 1990s. Frequently referring to current issues like the situation in Ukraine, the civil war in Syria, international terrorism and the crisis in the eurozone, the anther answers a number of crucial questions, such as knowing ‘who puts foreign policy into practice,’ ‘who takes critical decisions and on whose behalf,’ ‘how foreign relations affect domestic policy, and vice versa.’ Through the detailed answers he provides, he determines what foreign policy can and cannot be these days. (AKa)