*** DUSAN SIDJANSKI: Europe’s Existential Crisis. Facing the Threats and Challenges. Centre d’impression de l’Université de Genève (24 rue du Général-Dufour, CH-1211 Geneva 4. Tel: (41-22) 3797111 – Fax: 3791134 – Internet: http://www.unige.ch ). ‘Publications du Centre de compétences Dusan Sidjanski en études européennes,’ No. 2. 2018, 111 pp. ISBN 978-2-8399-2434-4.
Disciple and friend of Swiss thinker Denis de Rougemont, political scientist Dusan Sidjanski provides in this collection of essays that he’s written in recent years, one more battle in the intellectual war he’s been constantly waging to get Europe to definitively turn its back on nationalism and have recourse to federalism to ensure peace on the continent. Founder of the political science faculty at Geneva University, he now proclaims that he is nursing the hope that the French president, Emmanuel Macron, will manage to persuade the ‘European Council of the need for a Europe of sovereignty, or at least nine member states to e able to made use of ‘enhanced cooperation.’ Unfortunately, nothing could be less certain.
Dusan Sidjanski has seen many storms batter the European project since the ‘miracle’ of the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community in the early 1950s. As a determined federalist, he pays tribute for this to Jean Monnet, not failing to observe that the ‘strategy of sector by sector integration’ favoured by the latter did not manage to achieve the European federation that was precisely the objective cited in the Schuman Declaration, since ‘today the European Union with its 27 Member States represents the main economic and commercial power, and yet is deprived of any global vision and political powers.’ The fault for this lies with all those who, in the capital cities, allowed the original project to be stabbed away at so that national sovereignties can survive against all odds. In the introduction, the Swiss political scientist points out in passing that the guilty parties are not necessarily those whose names first come to mind, Charles de Gaulle for instance who, he explains, preferred national referendums to ‘a European referendum' as a basis for European legitimacy.’ On the other hand, he has a dig at the inspirers of the Lisbon Treaty who maintained, in addition to the option of national referendums, the obligation of ‘unanimous ratification of European treaties by all Member States, a practice which has been dropped even by the International Organisations.’
Examining the various threats that are now plunging the European Union into an existential crisis before tracing out some ways in which it would be possible to counter them, Dusan Sidjanski quite naturally spends time in his writing on the defects the eurozone is suffering from. He feels it is supposed to be the federal heart of the political integration process, ‘since no single currency has ever existed without political power.’ Eurogroup has become the prime forum that intergovernmentalism has found to express itself in at European level (along with the European Council, of course), which means that ‘Germany imposed austerity measures on its partners without measuring the destabilising effect they would have on the Eurozone as well as the Union, and how devastating they would be for solidarity within individual countries and for the functioning of their democracies.’ Austerity, this is the honey that populist and nationalist parties and all the anti-system movements throughout European countries these days gorge themselves on these days.
A deadly trap is thus threatening to close on the European project. Sidjanski does not resign himself to this. To break the spell, he urges a return to the core of the original European project. The sovereign Europe that is hoped and called for by President Macron is, he says, the only choice that will allow the long-term survival of European civilisation. The time of step-by-step approaches has ended if we want to save the essence. One must get rid of the ‘concept forged in incompatible terms’ that of a federation of nation states, even though it was defended by ‘Ferdinando Riccardi, Director of Agence Europe,’ which must cede to one of a ‘European federation,’ definitively turning one’s back on the ‘intergovernmental temptation.’ The question that arises, unfortunately, is for how much longer Dusan Sidjanski will be preaching in the wilderness…
Michel Theys
*** MICHALIS CHRISSOMALLIS: La méthode communautaire en question et la Constitution européenne en péril. Réflexions sur la crise actuelle de l'intégration européenne. Editions Nomiki Bibliothiki (23 rue Mavromichali, GR-10680 Athens. Tel: (30-210) 3678800 – Fax: 3678922 – Email: inanfo@nb.org – Internet: http://www.nb.org ). 2017, 208 pp, €9. ISBN 978-960-562-923-6.
In this study, a professor at Athens University highlights the risks relating to the multi-level crisis that t he European integration process is going through. Michalis Chrissomallis presents the ‘Community method’ and ‘European constitutionalism’ and analyses how they have been affected following the introduction of the open coordination method and solutions selected by the member states to deal with the current economic crisis and boost European economic governance by means of an intergovernmental transition which translated in the eurozone into the conclusion of the Stability and Growth Pact and the setting up of the European Stability Mechanism. The book is punctuated with a rich Greek and non-Greek bibliography and a useful alphabetical index. (AKa)
*** Fedechoses… pour le fédéralisme. Presse fédéraliste (Maison de l'Europe et des Européens, 242 rue Duguesclin, F-69003 Lyon. Internet: http://www.pressefederaliste.eu ). August 2018, No. 179, 64 pp, €6. Annual subscription: €30.
Born in 1973, this French federalist review looks in this issue at the challenges currently facing European integration and possible federalist answers. Lucio Levi returns to Italy, ‘the great sick man of Europe,’ after the coming to power of the populists. Their victory, ‘like that of Mussolini in 1922, can pave the way for a new type of fascism,’ observes this political scientist (of Turin University) quoting Steve Bannon who says the Italian voters ‘have hit the heart of the European beast’ and made Rome ‘the laboratory of the global sovereignist right-wing.’ He also points out that the parties in power had designed ‘a cold-blooded coup d’Etat’ that would have allowed Italy to leave the euro by a simple government decision, but President Mattarella managed to use his institutional powers to nip this plan in the bud. Jean-Guy Giraud denounces the ‘organised gang’ infringements committed by countries in the Visegrad group, which are ‘a veritable challenge to the very foundations of the Treaty,’ which among other things imposes a duty of loyalty. In order to ‘keep Europe in history,’ economist Michel Dévoluy calls for turning one’s back on the ordo-liberalism implemented by governments within the European Council, whose ‘result is a type of tutelary federalism in which the rules substitute for democratic choices,’ which means that Europe now incarnates the figure of ‘a bogeyman who cares little for his inhabitants’ - something that is also currently of benefit to populists and nationalists. Only moving to a ‘federation of member states of the eurozone’ would make it possible to save the European project, he concludes, while Paolo Ponzano recalls a number of lessons to be learnt from the career of Altiero Spinelli. It is also a question of the role that political parties could – should! – play so that the democratic deficit that the EU suffers from is brought to an end. The question of migration, that of people without a State (like Catalonia, where nationalism is fighting it out with federalism) and stepping up to a Global Federation are other topics discussed in this issue. (PBo)
*** JOANA MENDES and INGO VENZKE (Ed.): Allocating authorities. Who should do what in European and International 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, 312 pp, €67. ISBN 978-1-50991-193-6
The way the European institutions exercise and share their authority has never failed to provoke intense debate, for example, at the height of the crisis in the eurozone, whose management – and the legitimacy of various players to manage it – is far from the subject of unanimity. ‘Should the European Commission have the authority to reject national budget drafts and request change? What is the legitimate reach of the European Court of Justice when interpreting EU laws that constrain Member States’ social policies?’ These questions led Joana Mendez and Ingo Venzke to tackle analysis of the attribution of public authority in the framework of European and international law. In this book published under their editorship, they call for public authority to be perceived as ‘relative,’ ‘any actors’ exercise of public authority in global governance can best be understood (...) if put into relation to other actors’ and how it relates to ‘different legitimacy assets’.’ To give a concrete example, the European Parliament takes pride in ‘direct representation of citizens,’ the European Council wants to be the voice of the member states, while the European Commission’s authority is ‘anchored in its independence and collegiality.’ Along with this introduction, there are analyses such as that of Eoin Carolan and Deirdre Curtin, calling for a realistic evaluation of the European institutions’ authority relations over and above the ‘separation of powers thinking’ that has, however, materialised at EU level, explains Dominique Rittleng, in the ‘differentiation between legislative and administrative acts.’ Bruno de Witte looks at how the European Court of Justice ‘has ruled on the principle of institutional balance,’ which enabled it ‘to rationalise the complex allocation of authority of the Treaties.’ Along with these European angles, there is the international perspective provided, for maple, by Diano Desierto, which applies the principle of relative authority to the domains of international trade. The book’s authors thus plan to aim to provide a contribution to the structure of the debate on ‘who should do what in European and international law.’ (MU)
*** CARLES PUIGDEMONT: La crise catalane. Une opportunité pour l’Europe – Conversations avec Olivier Mouton. Editions Racine (Tour & Taxis, Entrepôt Royal, Avenue du Port, 86C / bte 104A, B-1000 Brussels, Tel: (32-2) 6464444 – Email: info@racine.be – Internet: http://www.racine.be ). 2018, 192 pp, € 21.99. ISBN 978-9401453875
Would the European Union have a role to play in the Catalan crisis in which Madrid and Barcelona continue to oppose each other? No, answer the European institutions, which have been silent in all languages on what is described as an internal Spanish problem. But according to separatist Carles Puigdemont, ‘the Catalan crisis’ would be an ‘opportunity for Europe.’ This is the message (and sub-title) of this new book which, emerging from dialogue with journalist Olivier Mouton, calls on the EU and more precisely the president of the European Council, Donald Tusk, to bring Spain and Catalonia to the negotiating table. ‘Dear Europe, there is something that isn’t right with us and therefore with you,’ he argues. The former separatist leader describes a Catalan society reduced to ‘an infrahuman scale’ in the name of the fatherland, thus also casting a rock into the Europeans’ garden: ‘if there had been a Europe of historical regions, perhaps we wouldn’t have arrived where we are now.’ He says that independent Catalonia would ‘have an economy open to the world’ and technological resources ‘to give power to its citizens.’ There you have it, ‘the twenty-first century republic deeply democratic and digital,’ born of a different kind of nationalism, neither rich nor of identity, a model that should in the future, says the author, guide the modernisation of the EU. Puigdemont’s dichotonomous vision, describing Catalan citizens as the victims of a repressive, Franco-ist and non-democratic State, sometimes overshadows the reflections, not lacking in interest, that he intends to add to the European debate. He is not the first, nor will he be the last, to query the viability of the nation state and its capacity to ‘manage the interests of cosmopolitan, multicultural, globalised societies.’ Or to ask how the EU could get over this ‘obsolete’ notion, and therefore the blockages of its member states, to listen to its citizens. Puigdemont would answer these challenges with the creation of United States (and Regions, and Citizens) of Europe. In other words, he says, by returning to the origins of the Community project, ‘supposed to lead to a Europe in which the weight of the States would subside to give greater power to the regions and to citizens.’ Although his quest for independence does not ring out in all four corners of the Old Continent, Carles Puigdemont is certainly not the only one saying: ‘Yes, we are orphans of the founding values of Europe.’ (MU)
*** Politique. Revue belge d’analyse et de débat. ASBL Politique (9 rue du Faucon, B-1000 Brussels. Tel: (32-2) 5386996 – Email: info@politique.eu.org – Internet: http://www.revuepolitique.org ). September 2018, No. 105, 132 pp, €12. Subscription: 45€ (€40 for the pdf version, €50 for both versions).
This issue of the reference progressive review in French-speaking Belgium contains a rich special report on ‘Belgian-style partocracy,’ and the rise of illiberalism in Europe is also examined, beginning with the editorial by editor-in-chief Henri Goldman, who sees it as proof that the ‘more Europe’ desired by Verhofstadt or Cohn-Bendit can no longer deceive anyone since in reality, ‘the liberal right-wing’ is now ‘ready to sacrifice the incidental – the absolute principle of human rights (…) – to the essential, maintaining its political hegemony and political domination.’ Carlos Crespo observes that, fortunately, ‘it is not easy for anyone to bring together all the radically right-wing parties in the European Union.’ (MT)