*** KENNETH DYSON: The Politics of the Euro-Zone. Stability or Breakdown? Oxford University Press (Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DPAGES, Tel: (44-01865) 556767 - Internet: http://www.oupagescom ). 2000, 311 pages, £40 (Hard back) or £14.99. ISBN 0-19-924164-3.
Highly renowned professor of European Studies at Bradford University, Kenneth Dyson should take one-month sabbatical breaks more often. Thus the time - after all limited… - which it took him to write this completely remarkable new work which offers, to start with or nearly, a penetrating analysis of the political implications of the establishment of the Euro zone and potential developments, both positive and negative, which may stem from it. A work of a policy analyst marked with the seal of the independent of thought and a vision of European (monetary) integration, which this intellectual cuts into pieces…
Impossible, for sure, to try to summarise such a work without taking the unpopular risk of cheating the author. This is why the lines that follow will have as sole aim to plant the seeds that fill the thinking of Prof. Dyson. Firstly, he wonders how the Euro zone functions and analyses the influence exercised by the European Central Bank on the other actors. He draws the conclusions that the Euro zone is, from its outset, "ECB Centric" in that the institution presided over by Wim Duisenberg is able to impose its preferences and its agenda. However it is the key to the door of a network, as it emerges increasingly clearly through the chapters. In the second, the author wonders: Is the Euro zone a two level game, a child of the Franc-German couple a new engine for Europe? Well, a little of all, even if the metaphor of the Franco-German engines seems to the author more pertinent than that of the parents (it would be, he explains, an uncomfortable experience for those whose child would be more in the position of a Professor treating his children like a school goer…). The author then considers the ways in which the Member States influence the Euro zone and are affected by it, the answer lies in the recognition of an mutual interdependence (the Euro zone is "ECB Centric", he notably writes, only to the extent that it is Germano-Centric and that the interests of each coincide). Though especially, the Euro zone constitutes a factor in a process of redefining the European States, their interests, political agendas and from the authority over policy, which means that, at the same time, it saps the States and comes to their rescue. Prof. Dyson then considers it, in the light of the institutional approach, (which makes him say that a culture of cooperation is being formed) before considering the problems of stability within it in the light of the lessons that can be drawn from history and economic science. He also envisages the prospects for stability that are promised to him and the traps that lie waiting before studying the issue of its legitimacy under the angle, among others, of social justice and the accession which raises it. Remarkable!
Michel Theys
*** GUIDO MONTANI, DARIO VELO (Edited by): Il governo dell'economia in Europa e in Italia. Giuffrè Editore (40, via Busto Arsizio, I-20151 Milan. Internet: http://www.giuffre.it ). 2000, 147 pages, ITL 25,000, EUR 12.91. ISBN 88-14-08007-0.
This academic book regroups a conference organised in October 1998 by the Faculty of Economics at the Università degli Studi of Pavie and by the Chamber of Commerce of the same Italian town. Considered as a historic step, the transfer of monetary power by the Member States to the European Central Bank forms the basis of the reflections over the emergence of a new economic and financial system in Europe. Pierre Maillet from the University of Lille I, thus looks at the coordination of the Community, national and regional budgets. According to him, monetary Union should be supplemented by "Community actions aimed at ensuring the coherence of national budget strategies". Moreover, in order to implement a balanced economic and monetary policy, it is also necessary, he asserts, for a better institutional organisation for a political Europe, a European government. He notably proposes better cooperation between the European Parliament and the national parliaments as well as a detailing of the Ecofin Council's role to establish a counterweight to the European Central Bank. Mailler concludes that the necessary adaptations - and politically difficult! - of the national and regional budgetary procedures will be the price to pay to ensure the complete success of the Euro.
For his part, by envisaging the governance of globalisation, Dario Velo, from Pavie University, widens the debate beyond the European horizon. In a hypothesis, he distinguishes three phases in the process of globalisation as criteria from possible interpretations: the United States phase, the neo-Atlantic phase and the global Atlantic phase. In his eyes, integration between the United States and the European s Union poses the problem of competitiveness and different social policies, the two political entities having to draw-up institutional solutions to manage their integration. Peter Bofinger (University of Würzburg) looks at the introduction of the Euro and the idea of a "new Bretton Woods". Instead of a stricter control of the capital flows that is favoured by certain colleague economists, he proposes a model based on fixed exchange rates in which the central banks would be reinforced to better defend the exchange rates against undesired speculation. According to him, the stability of exchange rates is a common good for world trade and the new Bretton Woods should be based on a triangular architecture whose pillars would be the Yen, Dollar and Euro. In his contribution Guido Montani (Pavie University) calls, him, for a European economic government by underlining that his approach said post-Keysian has nothing to do with the academic tradition of the same name, but indicates a post-national economic policy that would be implemented by a supranational government working in a global market. For him, the debate over unemployment in Europe is closely linked with the core political problem: the building of an effective European government. On the basis of a decisive statute of the politico-institutional quality, the Union could, in his eyes, serve the building of a new international order, more fair and peaceful, beyond a unipolar world. Finally, Jacky Fayolle, from the research department of the OFCE in France, analyses the economic and social order of the monetary union by assessing in a critical manner the economic role and the Agenda 2000 before considering certain prospects linked to the next enlargements of the Union.
(PB)
*** LUIGI PAGANETTO (Edited by): Tassazione, performance dell'economia ed Europa. il Mulino (37 Strada Maggiore, Casella Postale N° 119, I-40100 Bologna. Internet: http://www.mulino.it ). 2000, 226 pages, ITL 32,000, EUR 16.53. ISBN 88-15-07361-2.
Created under the guidance of the Dean of the Faculty of economics of the University of Tor Vergata in Rome and following a forum organised in the framework of the Centre for International Studies on the economy and development in the industrialised countries, special attention is granted to the characteristics of Italy in the matter. Of great academic quality, the contributions detail diverse hypothesis that cast light the possible interactions between these factors. Different scenarios are identified and examined - among others the relationship between the taxation structure and economic performance - by taking into account the variations in the international macroeconomic framework of reference: always greater integration of the financial and labour markets, modification of the level of freedom of the national macroeconomic policies due to the introduction of EMU, trends towards the progressive reduction of the relationship between wealth and revenue…
(GC)
*** ARALD BADINGER: The Demand for International Reserves in the Eurosystem. Implications of the Changeover to the Third Stage of EMU. Research Institute for European Affairs (39-45 Althanstrasse, A-1090 Vienna. Tel: (43-1) 313364135 - Fax: 31336758 - E-mail: europafragen@fgr.wu-wien.ac.at). "IEF Working Papers" series, N° 37. 2000, 77 pages.
This Working Paper discusses the implications of the transition to the single currency with regards to the demand for international reserves of the Eurosystem. A pointed document that only targets, due to the subject matter, specialists.
(MT)
*** The Euro: Next Steps to Success. Recommendations by the Monetary Panel of ELEC. Ligue européenne de coopération économique (11 rue de Ligne, B-1000 Brussels. Tel: (32-2) 2198250 - Fax: 2190663 - E-mail: elec@honet.be). "Cahier Comte Boël" series, N° 8. 2000, 20 pages.
This Cahier publishes the recommendations put forward by the "monetary panel" of the European League for economic cooperation in order to ensure the success of the single currency.
(MT)
*** Rights, Risk and Regulation. Centre for the New Europe (326 av. Louise, B6, B-1050 Brussels. Tel: (32-2) 6468983 - Fax: 6480462 - E-mail: info@cne.de). 2000, 116 pages.
Fruit of a conference organised by the Centre for the New Europe in Brussels in 1999, this publication regroups the contributions from professors, lawyers and businessmen generally critical against regulation and State intervention, individual and economic freedoms being honoured. Thus in the opening speech (which was followed by four group discussions), Lord Rees-Mogg, investment advisor who was active at the head of the Times, Financial Times and Sunday Times publications, asserts that companies suffer, in the Union, from an excessive regulation which is caused, according to him, by the regulation factory that is the Commission. In his eyes, the Anglo-American world shows greater respect for the market economic model, which leads to call for a major reform of the uses that prevail within the Union and to call in favour of a tax cut. Lawyer specialised in trade law, Rod Hunter talks of new political initiatives taken in order to tackle the non-functioning of the markets under the eloquent heading "new jargon and old ideas", which brings him, among others to criticise the concepts such as sustainable development and the precautionary principal. For his part, Lord Amstrong, former Cabinet Secretary and head of the Home Civil Service in the United Kingdom, considers the responsibility and the risk while taking as example the debate over fox hunting in England and tobacco smuggling. The need for risk is the theme broached by Detmar Doering, deputy Director General of the Liberal Institute of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation. He defends the point of view that the risk is the engine for economic progress and that the "socialism of risks" imposed in our societies by the welfare State is at the root of many problems. In his eyes, the solution passes through the institution of the free market of risk. The publicist and journalist Roger Scruton abounds in the same direction, he who underlines that regulation by bureaucrats who are not elected is a dangerous movement and who defends "the old European idea of sovereignty", by juxtaposing the right to settle risk and the right to settle the consistent behaviour of taking risks, Gérard Radnitzky, emeriti professor of philosophical sciences at the University of Treves, asserts that regulation is the enemy of freedom before noting that the EU manifests an ambiguous nature to the Janus as for the freedom and liberalisation, the risk being, according to him, that it one day becomes a "Euro-Leviathan" and that it slides from a Hayekian Europe towards a Delorsian Europe by reducing the freedoms of citizens. In the last contribution, Prof. Peter Koslowski (philosophy and economics) notes that the market has the "unique ability" of controlling contingence and that it uses a higher rational to that of the constructivist rationalism systems. In summary, a brochure confined to an unusual perspective, simplifying and caricaturing of the subject, presenting itself more as a manifestation of classical liberalists, even radical. Than as a balanced work.
(PB)
*** PIERRE BEZBAKH, SOPHIE GHERARDI (Edited by): Dictionnaire de l'économie. Larousse et Le Monde (Paris. Distribution: Presses de Belgique, 117 bld de l'Europe, B-1301 Wavre. Tel: (32-10) 420320 - Fax 412024). 2000, 638 pages, BEF 1,346. ISBN 2-03-505142-8.
Produced by economic journalists from the daily Le Monde and by a team of specialists and economics professors from French Universities, this dictionary is divided into five parts. It first broaches the major problematic of economic life in general: weight of technology, role of markets and the State, globalisation… It then tackles the practical economy, namely day-to-day management (taxation, insurance, pensions…). With the dictionary as such, all the terms, names, major dossiers and crucial names to be know are presented. The last two parts take the form of statistics relating to all countries of the world and an index, while being enriched with multiple tables, photos and inserts.
(MT)
*** ANIS BOUAYAD: Stratégie et Métier de l'entreprise. Pourquoi et comment définir le métier de votre entreprise. Dunod (Paris. Internet: http: //http://www.dunod.com ).Collection "Progrès du Management". 2000, 190 pages. ISBN 2-10-005153-9.
Doctor in management sciences, the author - who concentrated in Emmanuel d'André, CEO of the 3 Suisses International group - poses in this book, a methodology for use by company heads to define their job.
(MT)
*** DIDIER BOULAUD: Les transports publics de voyageurs à l'épreuve de la déréglementation. Délégation pour l'Union européenne de l'Assemblée nationale (Kiosque de l'Assemblée nationale, 4 rue Aristide-Briand, F-75007 Paris. Internet: http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr ). "Les documents d'information de l'Assemblée nationale" series, N° 2998. 2001, 69 pages, 20 FF, 3.05 Euros. ISBN 2-11-115164-5.
Should public transport for passengers be managed according to a single framework applicable whatever the local specificities? This is one of the stakes of the draft regulation put forward by the European Commission that is based upon two mechanisms: the allocation of the contract for public service through a call for tenders and the setting of its duration for five years. The French MP Didier Boulaud reveals, in his report, that this reform would affect the constitutional principal of free administration of territorial authorities and would lead to the dismantling of rail and underground networks.
*** In Europa. Le elezioni politiche in Italia. Erga Edizioni (52r via Biga, I-16144 Genova. Tel: (39-010) 8328441 - Fax: 8328799. E-mail: edizioni@erga.it - Internet: http://www.erga.it. ). April 2001, N° 1, 73 pages, ITL 15,000, 7.75 Euro. Annual subscription: ITL 40,000, EUR 20.60.
While Gianni Mattioli carries out the assessment of the previous legislature, Pasqualina Napoletano, European parliamentarian, wonders what is the fundamental difference, in Europe, between the Right and Left. Other themes broached: "Who is scared of the European Charter of Fundamental Rights?", "Maintaining the parameters of Maastricht, respect for the Stability Pact and significant reduction of taxes: a possible marriage?", "What European social model?", are conflicts of interest a European issue or Italian, Italian Right and Left have they the same vision of the European Union…
*** The EUROPEAN COMMISSION (Office FOR THE OFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF THE European Communities, L-2985, Luxembourg) has published the following documents:
*** The European Union and the world. In the "Europe on the move" series. 2001, 35 pages. ISBN 92-828-8260-8.
The influence of the Union in the world grows. Its main assets: the integration of member countries, the Euro and the development of a common security policy. The enlargement would allow to create an international market of some 500 million consumers. As the largest trading partner in the world, the EU intends to secure international transactions while ensure the development of the poorest countries.
*** How Europeans see themselves. Looking trough the mirror with public opinion surveys. In the "European documentation" series. 2001, 55 pages. ISBN: 92-894-0077-3.
The concerns of the Europeans questioned are for 63% of them the environment, for 56% unemployment and for 4% only European integration. As for the credibility of the European institutions, it is the Commission, which seems the most "solid", followed by the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament. As for the expectations for the 21st century, 78% of people questioned mention significant progress in the field of technology and 68% the possibility of overcoming serious illnesses such as AIDS or cancer.
*** Magazine de l'Internationale de l'Éducation. (5, Bd. Du Roi Albert II 1210 Brussels, Belgium. Tel: (32-2) 2240611 - Fax: 2240606 - Internet: http://www.ei-ie.org. ). May 2001, Vol 7, N°1, 29 pages.
In summary: The special UN General Assembly on the rights of children that will take place next September, the 2nd stage in the World Campaign for Education that has begun, an article by the ILO Director General for whom educating for greater social justice, is guaranteeing economic growth and the development of employment, a double dossier dedicated to the shortage of teachers (which affects the schooling sector in practically all the industrialised countries, from New Zealand to Canada and the United States to Belgium) and the trade union rights of teachers.
National reviews in short
*** Infoeuro. Feb, 2001, Brussels. In summary: interview with the Belgian Finance Minister Didier Reynders, the Euro as a factor for integration of the candidate countries, the exchanging of notes and coins and the recommendations from the Commission in order to facilitate the economic changes connected to the Euro. *** Louvain. April 2001, Louvain-la-Neuve. Recently elected President of the user committee of the Bibliothèque des sciences exactes, the geographer Isabelle Thomas, researcher qualified at the FNRS, and André Lejeune, professor of biology, are concerned: the rise in the prices for subscriptions to scientific reviews threaten strangling library budgets. *** L'Observateur. March 2001, Paris. For the first time since the middle of the 1980s, the OECD draws a complete panorama of the situation through an international study of the state and development of the environment in the agricultural sector. Certain advances are undeniable: over the last 15 years, the concentrations of nitrogen and pesticides in rivers, lakes and underground sources have fallen and the level of greenhouse gases has also fallen.