*** KEVIN HJORTSHOJ O’ROURKE: A brief history of Brexit. Editions Odile Jacob (15 rue Soufflot, F-75005 Paris cedex 05. Tel.: (33-1) 44416484 - Internet: http://www.odilejacob.fr ). 2018, 301 pp., €22.90 (€26.15 in Belgium). ISBN 978-2-7381-4625-0.
Born in Switzerland to an Irish father and a Danish mother, Kevin O'Rourke grew up in London, Dublin and Brussels. He now lives in Ireland, while working in England and being a town councillor in the small French village of Saint-Pierre-d'Entremont. He is therefore, in a way, the quintessential European. At the same time, he is an economic historian and more particularly a "specialist in globalisation and globalisation". All this makes this book a ‘must read’ for anyone who wants to understand where Brexit comes from, going beyond the images conveyed, without hindsight, through current events. To this end, he is working to bring together the highlights of British history and, even better, to tell the stories of the United Kingdom, the European Union and Ireland, since it is true that, for him, "it is in the interactions of the three that the negotiations take root" that led to last week's vote in the Commons. In this case, it is doing a prodigiously useful job.
First, he looks at why Europe has developed supranational institutions - and why the United Kingdom has traditionally been hostile to them. He began by reminding us that, unlike the way November 11 is experienced on the continent, Armistice Day is "certainly not seen as an opportunity to remind the British of the need for European integration", as evidenced by a memo to David Cameron when he was Prime Minister that it was necessary to "ensure that our commemoration {of the First World War} cannot provide any foundation for the myth that European integration was the result of both world wars". Hence this scathingly sober commentary by the author: "It leaves you speechless." The problem is that at the end of the industrial revolution, Europe was experiencing "a relative decline". The United Kingdom too, but he "remained undefeated"... In fact, strives to show Kevin O'Rourke afterwards, Great Britain remained, after 1945, influenced by "globalisation and imperialism of the nineteenth century", that is, by the vivid memory of an empire present in the four corners of the globe, of a power led, as Joseph Chamberlain, Secretary of the Colonies from 1895 to 1903, dared to affirm, by a "race, the greatest ruling race that the world would have known, this Anglo-Saxon race (...) which would inevitably be the dominant force in future history and universal civilisation". When European integration embarked from the outset on a supranational path, London preferred to rely on its dying empire and, soon, on the Commonwealth, which was called upon to adopt a system of preferential customs duties that would give them an advantage over the rest of the world. Hence this other comment, as murderous as it is tasty and relevant, by the author: "Like a Jean Monnet of the nationalist and imperialist world, Chamberlain wanted to make trade policy the instrument of political union", which would however leave London with its hands fully free...
The problem is that many of his British political heirs have followed in his footsteps and there are some who continue to do so to the point of hysteria. The problem is also that Schuman and Monnet's European project, which was fully supranational and which, the author recalls, constituted "the first concrete foundations of a European Federation essential for the preservation of peace", was indeed taking shape and gradually condemning Great Britain to a peripheral status, it had excluded itself "from a customs union to which the first three economies of continental Europe belonged". This confrontation between the customs union and the free trade area remains today more than ever at the heart of the arrangements to be concluded to ratify Brexit. This fixed idea has never stopped taunting British political "leaders", despite the admission of failure by the bearers of this vision, the "Brentry". However, from then on, "no fewer than 244 members of Parliament, including one fifth of those who supported the Conservative government, and the majority of Labour, voted against joining the European Communities in 1971". It is enough to say that the worm was in the fruit and has never ceased to be in the fruit since then, as integration progressed - the Single Market, which owes a lot to... Margaret Thatcher and which is a major thorn today, the British cheque, the "fundamental deepening of European integration" that the Maastricht Treaty was - which are told and commented on with mastery by the author.
Before describing and analysing with ruthless lucidity the British decision to leave the Union and commenting finely - and the economist's rigour - on the subsequent negotiations, the author also focuses on the case of Ireland. After showing how membership of the Union has transformed Ireland's economy and played a decisive role in the success of the Northern Ireland peace process, he punctuates his remarkable book with a brief discussion of the different future scenarios to which Brexit could lead. For the British, but also for Europeans.
Michel Theys
*** MARC ROCHE: Brexit will succeed. Editions Albin Michel (22 rue Huyghens, F-75014 Paris. Tel.: (33-1) 42791000 - fax: 43272158 - Internet: http://www.albin-michel.fr ). 2018, 233 pp., 18.50 €. ISBN: 978-2-226-40221-9.
"This is what happened to our country," said Anna Soubry, a pro-European member of the British Conservative Party, on January 8, after being harassed and called a "Nazi", "fascist" or "garbage" by demonstrators. In view of this increasingly radicalised social context, and while the political imbroglio persists across the Channel to such an extent that an exit without agreement is no longer to be ruled out, it is difficult to believe the Belgian journalist Marc Roche when he claims that "Brexit will succeed". In his latest book, as provocative as it is full of historical references, the former London correspondent of the daily newspapers Le Monde and Le Soir explains why the "remainer of the heart" has become a "Brexiter of reason". The common thread is the idea that "the European design of this nation, which was once the master of the oceans and manager of the greatest empire of all time, is only recent and temporary". However, the Belgian journalist was himself a victim of the rise of these "nauseating waters", of hatred, populism, racism, caused by Brexit. Nor is the author blind to the embarrassing "improvisation of Downing Street", nor to these "government advisers overwhelmed by the enormity of the issue". However, Marc Roche nevertheless preferred to bet on diplomacy, cultural and linguistic influence, financial and military power, not to mention the "admirable cynicism" of the British.
Perhaps this book, written at a time when the chaos of British politics had not yet reached today's peak, remained on the shelves of our Library for too long. Or on the contrary, did we open it too soon, Marc Roche admitting himself that "Brexit will undoubtedly hurt in the short term in the United Kingdom". In any case, it is still necessary to know what is meant by "success". Because even in the long term, the author admits that this success will come at a high price, namely that of a deregulated financial centre, strengthened tax havens and the reduction of the welfare state to a minimum, which will make the United Kingdom a "not better, but different, more unequal" country. (MU)
*** Revue générale. Reflection and Culture. Editions Samsa (Espace Pesce, 154 rue Berthelot, B-1190 Brussels. Tel.: (32-475) 636481 - E-mail: samsa@samsa-editions.be - Internet http://www.samsa.be ). 2018, no. 2, 257 pp., 22 €. Annual subscription: 80 € (Belgium), 88 € (European Union), 98 € (outside the European Union). ISBN 978-2-87593-207-5.
This issue of the Revue générale includes verbatim the speech on Brexit given by Michel Barnier at the Grand Catholic Conferences in Brussels on 5 November. Dedicated to Brexit, but with the will to situate it in the context of the existential crisis that is hitting Europe. The European negotiator thus invites us to "reweave the European flag", of which the Brexit would only be a particularly symbolic tear. To this end, we must listen to the ills of many Europeans, understand their "feeling of abandonment". This feeling is that of "a Europe that has been permeable to ultra-liberal doctrines for too long", which has led the Union to pursue "a trade policy that is sometimes naïve", "to reject any industrial policy in the name of competition policy alone" and "to become the Trojan horse for the deregulation of financial markets". And the former European Commissioner and French Minister of Foreign Affairs to call on the leaders - and the citizens! - Europeans to pull themselves together by recalling Charles Péguy's warning: "The triumph of demagoguery is fleeting, but the ruins are eternal." This refers to the Dossier in this issue, entitled "Getting out of war, entering peace?", which was not the case at the end of the First World War. This is explained by constitutionalist Francis Delpérée in his editorial: "The Treaty of Versailles does not end war. It chases after it. It sows the seeds of another conflict that is even more devastating. "Schuman and Monnet's merit is that they broke this cycle at the end of the Second World War. To be noted again are the views of diplomat Thierry Muûls on those who, in Germany, dared to oppose Hitler and the portrait painted by Francis Delpérée of Paul Struye, "jurist, Gaullist and Europeanist" who was for a long time President of the Senate in Belgium. (MT)
*** THEODOROS GEORGIOU: Twilight of political Europe. Editions Sakkoulas (23, rue Ippokratous, GR-10679 Athènes. Tel.: (30-210) 3387500 - fax: 3390075 - E-mail: info@sakkoulas.gr - Internet http://www.sakkoulas.gr ). 2018, 260 pp., 20 €. ISBN 978-960-568-702-1.
Through this brief and dense work, Theodoros Georgiou develops thoughts which, he points out, do not constitute a theoretical system in that they are fragmentary, since it is true that the thematic subject addressed, Europe, is not itself an entity but has been transformed into something largely partial, as part of the international financial system. Teaching philosophy and social sciences at the Democratic University of Thrace, he talks about the Union's current political transition and its transformation into a post-democratic entity that has abandoned its constitutional principles and values. Therefore, according to the methodology of critical theory, the thematic subject itself dictates its theoretical and epistemological treatment. This essay contains texts that attempt to identify and understand the current situation. As a historical "thing", Europe at the beginning of the 21st century is quite different from those of the 19th century, the author explaining that it has entered a historical transition that is mainly characterised by the primacy of the economic element. This is why it is transforming itself into a "technocratic Europe", particularly in the euro area. In short, money has now become the standard metre for judging everything in the world. The author analyses the problems of self-identification and identity of Europe, the problems of its construction and reconstruction, the problems of integration and its historical perspective, as well as the political problems that Europe is now facing. A whole chapter is also devoted to the "German economic empire" in the face of the European Union, with the author still interested in the 2014 European Parliament elections. A philosophical reflection on the crisis in Europe punctuates the book in the appendix. (AKa)
*** KOSTAS MARKAZOS: Opposed to ourselves. The hidden truths and symptoms of the Greek crisis. Editions Nomiki bibliothiki (23 rue Mavromichali, GR-10680 Athens. Tel.: (30-210) 3678800 - fax: 3678922 - E-mail: info@nb.org - Internet http://www.nb.org ). 2018, 256 pp., 14 €. ISBN 978-960-622-379-2.
The multifaceted crisis that has affected Greece over the past ten years has profoundly changed Greek society, even if this was not immediately perceived. Greece has paid and continues to pay a very high price - too much? - the perverse nature and pathologies that had long characterised its state system. In this book, Pr. Kostas Markazos (Athens School of Economics), is working to highlight the various causes of the current situation while making proposals. The central idea of the book is that the greatest obstacle to the ability to meet the challenge lies in... the Greeks themselves. For decades, the country's political leaders, in cooperation with the economic elite and the tolerance of trade unions and other intermediary bodies, have actively contributed to the undermining and discredit of a state perverted by clientelism and the arrival of interested foreign funds. So far, the author argues, Greece does not seem to have had the strength to break with the past. Soon, the Memoranda will be a thing of the past, but the real question is whether the future of the country will be designed by the Greeks or whether they will continue their guerrilla warfare against a plan and conditions imposed on the country. Denunciation of "foreigners", the author notes, offers no cure for chronic diseases, an idea he develops over the five parts of the book: the symptoms of the crisis, the political disagreements and the negative results that have resulted in the economy, the unorthodox orthodoxy of a "Church in the State", the national particularities and, finally, the flaws in the Greek tax system in the light of tax evaders and weak state control. (AKa)