*** MARJORIE JOUEN: Diversité européenne mode d'emploi. Editions Charles Léopold Mayer, Descartes & Cie (32 rue Cassette, F-75006 Paris). "Gouvernance et démocratie" collection. 2000, 223 pages, FF 98. ISBN 2-84446-019-4.
Marjorie Jouen tells, in this fascinating book, a beautiful and promising story, born from a mythical evidence: the future is not written; it is for us to write it, through our acts and our thoughts every day, whatever level we are! It is in this spirit that this former member of the ENA worked within the "Cellule de prospective de la Commission européenne" at the time of Jacques Delors, while a ceaseless wave of unemployment drowned Europe in the dark mist of "sinistrose"; her book bears witness that she has not stopped "thinking with her hands". Now that she works - always in the shadow of Jacques Delors… - as head of research for Notre Europe.
This book, Marjorie Jouen dedicates it "local initiatives for development and employment". Behind this title with technocratic overtone is hidden, maybe, on of the great ( r)evolutions of our present turn of century: the recognition of European diversity as a source of wealth to build an acceptable future for all Europeans. The adventure is born in 1993, with a report on the increasing use of sources of employment linked to the satisfaction of new needs felt by women and men of this time. With skill and accuracy, the author explains, in a first part, how all the European responsibilities arrived, whatever their political colour, to see themselves "in this new way of dealing with unemployment, starting with society and local dynamics to reach the economy, and not the opposite". Marjorie Jouen also tells how the "initiatives" had, to gain footing, cross steel with four major families of critics: the neo-liberals, the defenders of public services, the "republicans" (on other words, the partisans of a unitary and centralised State) and those nostalgic for the times of full employment. She then shows that actors of local economic development have been more prompt in falling into the mental chasm opened by the Commission that the government, before demonstrating, "proof by fifteen" to support, that the strategy of cooperation and networking of good practices wanted by the Commission showed itself to be costly as it opens out to the "living European reality" that begins on the ground and that feeds "a powerful movement for integration respectful of diversities". Through the prism of local initiatives, she then considers European society, which develops and lives without being noticed before dissecting the "new" European economy, which is taking root. A change of paradigm that change the plans, on which the powers, be they political or administrative, European or national, act. It is thus, in summary, a "laboratory Europe" that the author describes with full understanding of cause. And if nobody knows what will be created by this challenge, nothing is better than resignation?
Michel Theys
*** GIANCARLO CERRUTI, ROBERTO DI MONACO, MASSIMO FOLLIS (Edited by): Flessibilità d'impresa e sicurezza del lavoro. Per un nuovo approccio alle crisi occupazionali. Franco Angeli (Milan. Fax (39-2) 26141958 - E-mail - elnan@tin.it - Internet: http://www.francoangeli.it ). 2000, 354 pages. ITL 37,000 , EUR 19.11.
The authors of this book, who teach the "industrial sociology" or the "sociology of work" at l'Università degli Studi de Turin, gather together the results of the study of 21 cases developed in Italy in the framework of the "Modil - Modelli di Intervento per il Lavoro", a Community projects to which participate fourteen partners from ten European countries. In particular, they underline the role played by the local level in terms of innovation and provide examples of "original, complex and efficient solution", while noting that the local concentration must base itself on precise action strategies.
(MG)
*** EDMOND MAIRE: L'esprit libre. Editions du Seuil (27 rue Jacob, Paris VI). 1999, 251 pages, FF 120. ISBN 2-02-038182-6.
Trying to express himself over what "motivates him above all; social change", Edmond Maire, former Secretary General of the French CFDT trade union, writes that to succeed such a change, a prior requirement is needed that consists of "thinking reform". "Reform is my passion", announced Edmond Maire when presenting his book, last May in Brussels, before the European trade union world. Calling for "a review of ideologies", Edmond Maire notes "the ways of changing society that make priority use off the political path, on the one hand, and the market on the other show their limits". For the future, it requires, according to him "separating the main values, that is to say proximity, ethics, responsible autonomy and grant the greatest importance to the means". For the former Secretary General of the CFDT, "the cultural development is the basis of reform". Adding to this: "reforming, that is to say re-forming, to give a new form, it is transforming the existing and thus imagining it differently. It does mean giving new aims that we can understand, accessible, it concerns as much a move for diffusion".
In a chapter entitled "Emergencies" covering the future of Europe, Edmond Maire feels that it is "not acceptable that the European project tires after having established the Euro" and "appears incapable to giving impetus to a social future bearing hope". Also to explain his European credo: "Europe is firstly a political option, an ideal of peace and concrete internationalism… overcoming the nationalism, ending the Cold War on our continent, is the main aim of the building of a large European Community. It is fundamental". The French trade unionist also draws attention to the fact "that with the Euro, Europe is confronted to an acceleration of competition". For him, "the Trade Union movement can play a significant part for the building of a Europe capable of facing its responsibilities", even if "all of history shows that the social dimension has never been taken into account by the leaders, no more than the employers". The author asserts his conviction that "the trade union pressure, the fight of intellectual ideas, but also the courage of political leaders can accelerate to awareness building of Europeans for their common interests and create an necessary bridge in order to give the European Union all its meaning".
Finally, Edmond Maire also casts a critical eye on French society, on its inability to reform itself, on the cultural delays of its social actors as with its heads of companies, on the absence of ethics in many of its leaders, on the archaic power of the State, on the growing gap with citizens… in passing he notes that the trade union problem in France resides in the fact that the trade unions are mostly associated to political parties and are not considered enough as being part of civil society.
(GVH)
*** PIERRE BUIGUES, ALEXIS JACQUEMIN, JEAN-FRANCOIS MARCHIPONT (Edited by): Competitiveness and the Value of Intangible Assets. Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd (Glensanda House, Montpellier Parade, Cheltenham, Glos GL 50 1UA, United Kingdom. Tel: (44-1242) 226934 - Fax: 262111 - E-mail: info@e-elgar.co.uk). 2000, 335 pages. ISBN 1-84064-391-9.
In "Le Petit Prince", Saint-Exupéry said that "the essential is invisible for the eyes" recalling the authors of this work dedicated to the growing place that play, for competition in a modern economy, the "intangible" assets, which are not only linked to direct costs of the various factors of production, such as the level of education and training, the efficiency of the company organisation, the ability to constantly improve the production process, the emphasis placed of the concrete application of research in industrial processes and the fluidity of the conditions for the functioning of the market. In the future, underline the authors (who are civil servants or advisors to the European Commission), the governments will have to grant these intangible factors at least the same priority that they give to "physical" investments and, especially, they will have to try and incorporate all these elements in coherent strategies. By underlining the "fundamental new development", which is "the transformation of our economies into an economy based on information", they note that this goes far beyond the economic aspects and "deeply effects social values", by going towards the maintaining of the basic notion a public service guaranteed to each citizen of free speech and protection against the intrusion in the private life; these changes must not be used as an excuse to discriminate the disadvantaged categories they also add.
Romano Prodi, at the start of this book (the first that he has prefaced), recognises that, since the 1990s, the United States have benefited remarkably from these intangible factors and asserts - as he ceaselessly repeats in his speeches - that a priority for Europe must be to develop more rapidly it ability to benefit from these new opportunities. This work, which is the fruit of a "high level scientific research", should help the reader "understand the intangible", writes the Commission President.
(MG)
*** Le RESEAU EUROPEEN DE LUTTE CONTRE LA PAUVRETE ET L'EXCLUSION SOCIALE (EAPN, 37/41 rue du Congrès, bte 2, B-1000 Brussels. Tel: (32-2) 2304455 - Fax: 2309733 - E-mail: eapn@euronet.be) edited the following two new publications:
- Relever le défi de la pauvreté et de l'exclusion sociale dans l'Union européenne. May 2000, 192 pages, EUR 10. ISBN 2-930252-14-6. Produced with the financial support of the European Commission, this publication - available in German, English, Spanish and French - presents the strategies for the fight against poverty and social exclusion in nine Member States: Germany, Belgium, Finland, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal and United Kingdom. We also find an account of the conference organised by the EAPN in November 1999 in Helsinki on the theme "fight poverty and social exclusion: whatever the national and European strategies?" as well as the from the network for the implementation of Article 137 of the Treaty.
- La pauvreté en Europe: les chiffres pour les Etats membres de l'UE. April 2000, 18 pages, EUR 4. ISBN 2-930252-17-0. Available in five languages (French, English, German, Italian and Spanish) on the Internet site of EAPN (http://www.eapn.org ), this second edition presents in clear and readable manner all the latest data available at a European level, by presenting in the form of maps, graphs and tables. This data come from the European Community Household Panel (ECHP), a multidimensional investigation carried out by Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Communities, in 1994, 1955 and 1996. Their assessment is dismal: close to 62 million people live below the poverty line within the EU.
*** GABRIELLE VONFELT (edited by): Equal treatment between men and women. European instiute for public administration (22 O.L. Vrouweplein, BP 1229, NL-6201 Maastricht, Netherlands. Tel: (31-43) 43-3296274. E-mail: m.simons@eipa-nl.com. Internet: http: //http://www.eipa.nl ). "Current European Issues" collection. 2000, 94 pages. ISBN 90-6779-144-X.
Equality between men and women with regards to Community law and the European Human Rights Convention was the theme of a seminar organised by the EIPA in Luxembourg in June 1999. This work renders an account by gathering together various contributions. True instrument of work aimed at high-level political and administrative chiefs, international lawyers and civil servants, it draws an assessment of the jurispudential and legislative progress accomplished since the institutionalisation of the principal of equality between men and women and bring elements for reflection on the way in which to effectively fight against inequalities in treatment, be it in the field of work or in the framework of family life.
In its introduction, Gabrielle Vonfelt, Director of the European centre for magistrates and legal professions, notes that women have left their dependency and that the family has evolved. "The national, international and Community norm tends to take into account this fact of society and to favour it. Is equality no longer one of the pillars of democracy?", asks the author while continuing, with a wink: "But the effective realisation of equal treatment between men and women remains to be completed. Furthermore, we must not say that equal treatment between women and men, instead of equal treatment between men and women, the lack of equality existing in the situation of women, and not on the level of that of men?".
(GVH)
*** Vers la parité. Association française du conseil des communes et régions d'Europe (30 rue d'Alsace-Lorraine, F-4500 Orléans, France. Tel: (33-2) 38778383 - Fax: 38772103 - E-mail: contact@afccre.com - Internet: http: //http://www.afccre.com ). "Europe locale" collection, special edition N°3. March 2000, 169 pages, FF 150.
This document reproduces in the first part the debates of a workshop organised by the French National Assembly on 20 November 1998, is dedicated to the theme local and regional councillors on Europe: objective for parity". In the second part, it presents the positions taken by the French and European in favour of equal opportunities, the EU's policies in this field and the situation of women in the labour market.
(GVH)
*** Biblioteca della libertà. Centro Einaudi (4 via Ponza, I-10121 Turin. Internet: http: // http://www.centroeinaudi.it ). May-June 2000, N° 154, 121 pages, ITL 20,000.
This issue starts with a text entitled "Vox populi, vox Dei ?" in which Prof. Raymond Bourdon (Sorbonne) tries to interpret the metaphor of Adam Smith on the "impartial spectator" (less known, he notes, than that of the "invisible hand"). Furthermore, Jan Wieniecki, Vice-President of the Polish Society of Market Economist, looks at "the conditions for the success of privatisation's: the Polish case.
(MG)
*** Trans-national corporations. United Nations Office (Palais des Nations, CH-1211-Geneva. Tel: (41-229172615 - Fax: 229170027 - E-mail: unpubli@unog.ch). August 1999, Vol. 8, N°2, 141 pages. Annual subscription: USD 45.
This review assesses 40 years of American investments in British companies. If the United States represented 4.8% of foreign investments in 1952, they have now risen to 14.7%, 40 years later. The favoured private sectors have been the chemical, pharmaceutical and electricity industries. Cooperation has also developed through university exchanges between economists, sociologists and other researchers.
*** International financial company. Improve the living conditions by reinforcing the private sector: annual report 1999. SFI (2121 Pennsylvania Av., NW Washington DC 20433. Tel: (202) 4737711 - Fax: 9744384 - Internet: http://www.ifc.org ), 1999, 120 pages.
Since its creation in 1956, the SFI allocated USD 26.7 billion in the economies of 135 countries. The SFI co-ordinates its action with the other World Bank institutions. Its mission: promote private investments that reduce poverty and improve the living conditions for the people living in the LDC. One of the ways in which to achieve this is to catalyse the investment. One other action by the SFI consists of providing advice in the setting up of complex transactions. This structure works towards training people, which, in the field, will be able to pass this on, train and tutor students and managers. This report draws an assessment of the SFI action and indicates which countries have been helped, and in what way and for how much.
*** EUROPEAN COMMISSION. Eurydice: Life long learning. The contribution of the European Union Member States' education systems. Distributed by the sale network of the Official Office of publications. 2000, 165 pages. Exists in all the official languages of the EU. ISBN: 2-87116-295-6.
Lifelong learning is one of the main aims of European policy. The investigation carried out by Eurydice, between October 1999 and March 2000, covers the measures and policies implemented by the EU 15 governments. So that each individual, young and less young, may learn. One result is that the education systems are widely solicited, each to his level, but according to a variable degree varying between the countries, to bring their contribution to the objective of lifelong learning. Aim, which requires fundamental changes to the role of public powers and the human resource policy in the education systems.
*** OECD: Main Economic Indicators, statistics. DV GmbH (8 Birkenmaarsstrasse, D-53340, Meckenheim. Tel: (49-22) 25926166 - Fax: 25926169. Internet: www.oecd.org). September 2000, N°9, 281 pages.
These key short-term statistics form an indispensable tool for analysis for economists, academics and researchers. They offer a wide range of economic indicators relating to recent developments of the situation in the 29 member countries of the OECD and in 10 non-member countries. The indicators are presented according to subject and country. This follows the production index for gross domestic products passing by the rate of unemployment.
*** La Lettre. Fédération internationale des Ligues des Droits de l'Homme (17 passage de la Main d'Or, F-75011 Paris. Tel: (33-1) 43552518 - Fax: 43551880 - E-mail: fidh@fidh.org). October 2000, FF 25, EUR 2.28. In summary: a dossier on the Euro-Mediterranean partnership that remains to be built, the elections in the FRY "Who can still stop the International Court of Justice?"
National reviews
*** Labour magazine. Brussels, N° 2000/3. In summary: the standards produced by the ILO, the end of the Lomé Conventions, the economic opening towards China, relations between trade unions and NGOs, civil society: "ambiguous and necessary", border regions ("slightly better") and the history of a trade unionism with principal. *** Departments, N° 61, September 2000. In summary: removal of the vignette, French EU President, report by the monitoring centre on local finances, haulers undertakings (assessment and trends), overview of the risk factors that weigh on the government budgets towards 2005 and the digital signature for electronic administrations. *** Slovenia Weekly, Ljubljana, N° 37. In summary: State and religious communities ("the culture of dialogue"), external trade and the priorities of the Defence Minister.