Rallumer les étoiles
The French Senator (LREM) André Gattolin and the journalist Richard Werly (Le Temps) paint “a picture of a continent battered by storms and hurricanes throughout its history and still faced with the depressing observation that Europe is a myth that we managed to build, but which we are no longer able to cherish” (our translation throughout). They do so with the ambitious aim of identifying courses of action to “give this group of 450 million citizens, united by a shared sovereignty that is so hard to implement, a lasting feeling that they belong together”. To this end, the authors propose a “shared history”, the democratisation of the institutions and an increase in the Union’s budgetary capacity.
Despite successive reforms, the European Parliament still has no real powers of legislative initiative and “all too often, the most important decisions in European integration are made in the conclave of meetings of the European Council of the heads of state and government, by dint of bitterly negotiated compromises and in response to unexpected crises which the member states are unable to deal with”. In response to this situation, Gattolin makes the case for transnational lists in the European elections and for “consultative referendums on properly identified questions and approaches that deserve to be put before the Europeans as a whole” to be held at the same time as the European elections.
Although Gattolin hails the fact that the EU budgetary capacity has virtually doubled over the last four years, to stand at around 2% of its total GDP, as “extremely good news”, he warns against any triumphalism, as this increase, designed to respond to the Covid-19 crisis, is only temporary in nature, whereas the “EU’s resources need to be brought up to 3% of total GDP by 2050” to meet technological challenges, resist international competition and safeguard the permanence of the European social model.
“Over several years, the European leaders have added to the original promise of peace and prosperity the pledge of a ‘Europe that protects’. This is a skilful and fair pledge as regards the substance, responding to the concerns brought about by globalisation and the new planetary disorder”, Gattolin notes, going on to stress how hollow this slogan sounds given the reality of the situation: “with no serious military capability, with no federal police force, with no harmonised fiscal policy or real social policies, the European Union is hardly credible when it comes to protection”.
“To allow people to get a better grasp of the Europe they live in, it is absolutely vital to teach languages and our shared history. Learning two European languages as well as one’s mother tongue from as young as possible is a priority. A broad scientific and teaching initiative needs to be launched without delay in the area of teaching the history of Europe, its culture and its civilisations. At the same time, we need to widen the frequently ideologised narratives of our official national histories and provide a warts-and-all view of the wealth of European history – which is currently all too often reduced to an institutional and non-critical chronology of the major stages in European integration”, Gattolin goes on to argue, perfectly accurately. Even so, as Alain Lamassoure pointed out in an interview with Richard Werly, the teaching of history, despite the efforts of the Council of Europe, continues to be a matter of propaganda and controversy. The former French Minister for European Affairs and long-serving Member of the European Parliament provides a very interesting summary of the teaching of history, which the observatory HOPE is to take as a basis for future work whilst serving as a dialogue and exchange of best practice. This observatory was set up on 12 November 2020 in the form of a partial agreement between 17 member states of the Council of Europe. (Olivier Jehin)
André Gattolin, Richard Werly. Europe – Rallumer les étoiles. Nevicata. ISBN: 978-2-87523-142-0.
124 pages. €9,00
Une constitution pour les États-Unis d’Europe
“The worsening of the international context and the disintegration of the EU should prompt European citizens to breathe new life into the political union of Europe. It alone can give us the capacities we need to smooth our relations with our neighbourhood and partners: this requires a powerful and, therefore, united Europe. This is what the European citizens want. They are proud of their differences, because they know that they enrich them, but they want unity in diversity and coherence, not chaos and powerlessness”, André Flahaut asserts in the preface to this work. Although he is well aware that a federal Europe is still only a utopia, the former Belgian defence minister (1999-2007) and President of the Chamber of Representatives (2010-2014) still believes that “we must, as a matter of urgency, convince the leaders of at least two member states of both the EU and NATO to create the United States of Europe (USE) and a genuine, efficient, credible and respected European defence”. He firmly believes that sooner or later, all the other countries will come on board.
And it is for such an initiative that Jean Marsia, former head of the academic teaching division of the Belgian Royal Academy School (2003-2009) and defence adviser to the Prime Minister, makes the case. The author bases his argument on the observation that the “sovereignty of the member states and the inter-governmental mode of management of the EU have led to paralysis, financial mismanagement, operational impotence and a lack of political credibility”. He goes on to point out that “Defence Europe has made little or no progress since 2005, whilst the rule of law and the Schengen zone have gone backwards. More and more member states are sliding into authoritarianism, like in the 1930s, which is hobbling the democratic ones. Everybody is aware of the terrible consequences of certain extremely poor electoral choices back then. If armed with adequate institutions, Europe could convince the great powers to adapt their behaviour to the general interest, as it should itself do. And it would have the size and the economic and demographic weight to do so, which its member states do not have individually”.
“It is the ‘ever closer union’ we should be aiming for: to move from the disunity of the EU to its federation, to the USE”, Marsia argues, stressing that it is “vital to reverse what the EU’s logic has become, because of Mrs Thatcher and the weakness of the other leaders of the time: each member state looks for its own advantage, at the expense of the common interest”. “Calling for federalism at this critical time, when the pandemic has claimed thousands of victims and the leaders of Europe are giving in to the temptation to protect themselves by closing the borders and quarantining Europeans, is no doubt utopic, but utopia is less damaging than inaction, conformism, selfishness and the narcissism of these leaders”, the author adds, going on to propose a strange patchwork of a federal constitution project…
A Gaullist to his bones, the author goes on to draw from the sources of the Fifth Republic a presidential regime with a president elected by direct universal suffrage at European level for a term of seven years. Like his American counterpart, this president would take oath and appoint the holders of the most senior officers, including a government (with a Prime Minister and seven ministers: why seven?), with these appointments to be subject to approval by the Parliament. The president would be the head of the armed forces and run the defence and foreign affairs policies, in which fields his or her principal interlocutor would be a Senate made up of members appointed by the member states. Interior policy would be implemented by the government under the watchful eye of the Parliament, whose members would be elected every five years by direct universal suffrage on the basis of a single European electoral system that would iron out the differences that currently subsist in the election of representatives of the European Parliament.
Finally, Marsia expresses his hopes that this president would not only be able to veto the laws voted through by the Parliament and Senate, but also have powers to dissolve the Parliament, currently requiring a two-thirds majority of both assemblies to revoke it. This hyper-president would, moreover, be required simply to inform the Parliament within 48 hours of the launch of any military operation, without the Parliament being able to take position on its justifiability for the first four months of the operation. Sometimes, there are hopes that are far better off unfulfilled. (OJ)
Jean Marsia. Une constitution fédérale pour les États-Unis d’Europe – Pourquoi et comment? (available in French only). Société européenne de défense AISBL. ISBN: 978-2-96025-530-0. 274 pages. €17,00
The man in the red coat
“The Man in the Red Coat” is not exactly a novel, but it reads like one, or can be browsed like a fresco with a seemingly infinite abundance of details. A fresco or an enormous display case of curiosities, or possibly several cases that we can move between to rediscover Belle Époque Paris. There is, of course, the man in the red coat himself, who collects works and conquests. But other collectors gravitate around him, collectors of art or gossip, of women or of men. And then there is the publisher, who offers as a superbly illustrated work, with paintings, some in colour, photographs and a collection of Felix Potin vignettes. From the present day and age, which is shaped by social networks and reality TV shows, Julian Barnes takes us on a voyeuristic experience through Paris at the turn of the last century.
The name of the man in the red coat, painted by John Singer Sargent in 1881, was Samuel Pozzi. A surgeon and father of the French gynaecological profession, he was extremely popular with high-society ladies, such as actresses, among them Sarah Bernhardt, and artists. He gives a title and a pretext to this work, which also devotes many pages to several other personalities from the period who were eccentric or scandalous: Edmond de Goncourt, Oscar Wilde, Robert de Montesquiou, etc. Dandyism, which Baudelaire described as the “last flicker of heroism in decadent ages”, is omnipresent in the book, which describes it perhaps less flatteringly as a “vague institution, just as bizarre as duelling”.
“I wrote this book during what would turn out to be the last year before the United Kingdom left the European union, out of a kind of misguided masochism. And Dr Pozzi’s maxim (‘chauvinism is one of the forms of ignorance’) came to mind frequently, with the British political elite, incapable of putting themselves into the shoes of the Europeans (or disinclined to do so, or possibly too stupid to do so), acted again and again as if what it wanted to happen and what would happen were probably the same thing”, Barnes noted. He went on to stress that “in spite of everything, I refuse to be pessimistic. The past days of the far-off, decadent, bustling, violent, narcissistic and neurotic Belle Époque actually left me feeling confident. Particularly thanks to the character of Samuel Jean Pozzi. Whose ancestors moved from Italy to France. Whose father’s second wife was an Englishwoman. Whose half-brother married an Englishwoman in Liverpool. Who had his clothes and curtains made from fabric sent from London (…). Who was rational, scientific, progressive, international and constantly interested in everything (…); who filled his existence with medicine, art, books, travel, friends and knowledge, politics and as much sex as possible (we cannot know everything about that)”.
“The Belle Époque was a period of great wealth for the most fortunate, of social power for the aristocracy, unbridled and many-layered snobbery, impetuous colonial ambitions, artistic patronage and duels, the degree of violence of which often reflected personal irascibility rather than a wounded sense of honour”, the author goes on to explain, in particular questioning our propensity to judge the past: “what is there in these present times that makes us so desperate to judge the past? There is still a tendency towards neurosis in the present, which believes itself to be superior to the past, but cannot entirely overcome a persistent anxiety at the thought that it might not be. And behind all of this, there is another question: what allows us to judge? We are the present, that is the past: that is generally enough for most of us. And the farther away we are from the past, the more tempting it is to simplify it. No matter how obscene our accusation, it never responds, it remains silent … (OJ)
Julian Barnes. The Man in the Red Coat. Penguin. (Also available in French, translated from English by Jean-Pierre Aoustin. Mercure de France). ISBN: 9781787332164. 280 pages. £20.00
États-Unis: la fin d’un mythe
The latest edition of the review Futuribles offers an interesting analysis of sociopolitical developments and demographic trends (on the basis of the most recent census) in the United States. In his European history, former European civil servant Jean-François Drevet reminds us that the European states, not excluding Germany, have shown great ingenuity in the past in finding solutions to levels of indebtedness akin to those that will follow on from the current pandemic. (OJ)
François de Jouvenel. États-Unis: la fin d’un mythe (available in French only). Futuribles. Edition 439, November-December 2020. ISBN: 978-2-84387-452-9. 130 pages. €22,00