*** CHRISTIAN PHILIP: Directive gaz: une préfiguration de la nouvelle approche française en matière de transposition. 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", No. 391. 2002, 119 pp, 5 euros. ISBN 2-11-116254-X.
The Vice-President of the Délégation de l'Assemblée nationale française pour l'Union européenne (headed by Pierre Lequiller), Christian Philip, takes advantage of this report on the transposition of the 22 June 1998 directive establishing common rules for the natural gas internal market to score points in terms of domestic politics in France, thereby clearly marking out the Delegation's desire to be "associated with the totality of the process of drawing up European standards, from their negotiation in the various Community institutions to their integration in domestic law". The shoe pinches downstream, during transposition. He points out that it would be useful for the Delegation to provide information for the National Assembly since the Delegation carefully follows the Community negotiations. Against this backdrop, the report starts by pointing out the problems encountered by France in transposing directives within the given deadlines, putting forward proposals for remedying this "unacceptable" situation. It then goes on to comment that the current draft law "makes it possible to reconcile opening up to competition with public service obligations". Finally, predictable changes in Community standards lead the author to recommend that Paris favour a "constructive approach", particularly in terms of issues surrounding opening up the domestic gas market and separating off the activities of integrated enterprises.
(MT)
*** AURORE LAGET-ANNAMAYER: La régulation des services publics en réseaux, Telécommunications et électricité. Bruylant (67, rue de la Régence. B-1000 Brussels). Tel: (00-32) (0)2 5129845 - Fax: 5117202 - Internet: http: //http://www.bruylant.be/ - Email: info@bruylant.be - " Librairie générale de droit et de jurisprudence" series. 2002, 545 pp. ISBN 2-8027-1589-5.
Perfect example of French administrative law, the notion of public service has significantly changed and is continuing to change. For a long while, its operational and organic aspects have been enmeshed. "This conjunction corresponded to a type of economic thought and a type of technical advance", two motors in the history of the notion of public service. The period following the Second World War, for example, saw the rubber stamping of public management of big networks. Single or monopoly companies linked their strength to the big state monopolies. The success of free market and competition policies, allied with technological progress, then gave birth to the setting up of new legal instruments. "Rather than the "droit régalien" through which the reality of public service manifested itself, the need became apparent for a new law to manage the changeover from a centralised organisation that justified itself to a market organisation that had to be justified by the quality of its operations". This new legal practice is denoted by the term "regulation", but this is not a more polysemic term that the former. It would even be tempting to assert that it refers to national reality, which is specific by its very nature. Community law "sometimes adds to the confusion by not always clearly distinguishing between the terms 'regulation' and 'regulating'". Having retraced the history of this concept through time and countries, the author argues that "regulation still seems to be a linguistic facility rather than the translation of a legally organised function". She considers understanding it, however, through its legal acceptance. It is the French law regulating telecommunications of 26 July 1996 that formally rubber-stamps the notion of regulation, without giving it a very detailed definition but extracting it from an epistemological wilderness, that is brilliantly outlined in this book. The institutional, technical and political challenges of regulating networks, which have now been thrust to the fore in the legal debate, is what led Aurore Laget-Annamayer to select public network services as her focus of study. The problem here lies in circumscribing the notion of "public network services" since the notion is both legal and transversal (in that it involves more than technical and economic issues).
Aurore Laget-Annamayer divides her research into two sections. In the first section on "a new legal function" the author starts by analysing the foundations of regulation via "respect of competition" and "preserving general interest duties". She then describes operating modes by outlining "fair organisation of the market", "fair competition practices" and "public service guarantees in a competitive environment". In the second section she deals with the "renewed institutional framework", from the "creation of specialist regulators" to the "planning of a new institutional balance".
The author is a Doctor of Law from Paris V University. As is noted in the preface by Jacques Fournier, honorary conseiller d'Etat and Honorary President of the French railways (SNCF), Aurore Laget-Annamayer puts her finger on the fundamental issue of the "predetermined aim" of regulation, its substance and, most importantly of all, the people who determine it.
(AD)
*** MARIA JOAO RODRIGUES (Ed.): The New Knowledge Economy in Europe. A strategy for international competitiveness and social cohesion. Edward Elgar Publishing (Glensanda House, Montpellier Parade, Cheltenham, Glos, GL50 1UA, UK. Tel: (44-1242) 226934 - Fax: 262111 - E-mail: info@e-elgar.co.uk). 2002, 337 pp. ISBN 1-84064-719-1.
Knowledge has always been an integral part of human societies but what is new is the speed at which knowledge is being accumulated and disseminated thanks to information and telecommunications technologies.
Resulting in changes to working and living conditions and markets and institutions being subjected to different rules, based on the new information exchange possibilities. These days, we talk about knowledge-based societies and economies, with knowledge becoming the main source of wealth for nations and communities, but also a source of inequality.
The challenges that Europe will have to face must be reassessed in the light of these changes. One of these challenges is the attempt to reconcile competitiveness and social cohesion. A realistic assessment might conclude that it is impossible to keep the European social model given the new situation created by globalisation and technological changes, a situation made worse by an ageing population.
But a more positive response would be to say that new elements of competitiveness have to be found, the European social model needs renewing and globalisation needs regulating.
In Lisbon in March 2000, the EU gave itself the objective of making the European Union "the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy, capable of sustainable economic growth accompanied by quantitative and qualitative employment and greater social cohesion" and set out a global strategy to this end.
The main test facing the Lisbon strategy in the years ahead is to develop a knowledge-based economy while preserving social cohesion, and to promote real convergence in Europe.
(MF)
*** MICHEL COMBES, JEAN-MARC MONTSERRAT, LOIC TRIBOT LA SPIERE: Transport Aérien: les nouveaux défis. Editions Publisud (15 rue des Cinq-Diamants, F-75013 Paris. Tel: (33-1) 45807850 - Fax: 45899415 - E-mail: publisud@compuserve.com). "Prospective stratégique" series. 2002, 238 pp, 26.83 euros. ISBN 2-86600-891-X.
Air transport is undergoing a serious crisis due to an unfavourable economic climate made worse by the attacks of 11 September. The authors of this book are at pains to move beyond those tragic events to provide more of an overview of the sector.
They have divided their work into two parts. The first chapters analyse elements that make it possible to become and remain market leaders. Some actors, such as the Commission, are militating in favour of capital consolidation in the framework of the EU. Loyola de Palacio, Vice-President of the Commission, who wrote the preface to the book, and René Lapautre, former President of UTA, believe that protectionist bilateral agreements are the cause of various problems and an obstacle to full liberalisation of the sector. The second part focuses on the various future challenges, such as preserving the environment, the need to cut noise pollution, saturation of the skies and airport capacity, and the need to ensure a certain level of security.
(ML)
*** OLIVIER CASTRIC: Quel partenariat pour les régions de l'Union européenne? Editions Apogée (11 rue du Noyer, F-35000 Rennes. Tel: (33-2) 99324595 - Fax: 99324598 - E-mail: apogee.rennes@wanadoo.fr). "Publications du Pôle européen Jean Monnet, Université Rennes 1" series. 2002, 424 pp, 32 euros. ISBN 2-84398-111-5.
The question at the heart of this book, that gave rise to the doctoral thesis it is based on (defended at the Law and Political Science Faculty of Rennes 1 University in 2001) is, "What partnerships for the European Union regions?". As Prof. Raux pertinently points out in the foreword, this question has moved "to centre stage in the European project and the constitutionalisation of the EU". As the emeritus professor and Coordinator of the Jean Monnet European Centre at Rennes 1 University explains, "the more the European Union federates its Member States (…) the more it has to ensure it has their aid in leading the citizens of Europe", which means no longer neglecting local and regional authorities, "no matter how their statute differs from one Member State to the next". The author is now Policy Officer for the President of the Conseil général of Finistère region. He starts the book in this spirit by welcoming the fact that both proximity and subsidiarity "in the downward direction from the EU institutions to local and regional authorities" have gradually been "conjugated and imposed as inseparable principles of good governance" in Europe, as Professor Raux summarises. At the same time, the author notes that local and regional authorities have themselves become aware of their incapacity for dealing at optimal levels of efficiency with problems the solution of which lies beyond the scope of their competence and beyond national boundaries, which also makes subsidiarity necessary in the upward direction, from local and regional authorities to the European institutions. Over and above this vertical partnership (that is put in place as required), the author rigorously and meticulously analyses the horizontal partnership that local and regional authorities are developing "from one region to another, independently of national frontiers, despite or with the aid of Member States". This dynamic is encouraged, as the author well illustrates, by Community actors in the name of economic and social or territorial coherence, which leads to the author drawing up a table of types of interregional cooperation. In the final part of the book, Olivier Castric considers the nature of partnerships and suggests that the Convention consider conferring a specific constitutional principle to partnerships. This is not the least of the merits of this book, described by Prof. Raux as "far-reaching research into good governance with a federating logic"!
(LD)
*** CHRISTIAN PHILIP: L'Europe ferroviaire est-elle sur la bonne voie? Kiosque de l'Assemblée nationale (4, rue Aristide Briand. F-75007 Paris) "Les documents d'information de l'Assemblée nationale". 2002, No. 388, 80 pp. ISBN 2-11-116494-1.
The "second rail package" put forward by the Commission, without waiting for the first package to be transposed, aims to un-fragment the European landscape. It proposes setting up a European Rail Agency to reduce disparities between the national networks, and setting up a common approach to safety. The author of this report (a French National Assembly parliamentarian) does not oppose the idea of opening freight transport up to competition, one of the crowning elements of the proposal. On the other hand, he believes that "the process launched by the Commission cannot be sustained and, without serious guarantees, will be unable to prevent two series of slippage". The first results from the absence of necessary structural resources in some countries for opening up to competition. A situation that clashes with the public speeches in favour of full and immediate opening up of the freight market. The second reason "would be wild liberalisation that would encourage social dumping and the violation of safety standards". To date, it would appear that Member States have not yet achieved "irreproachable regulation" in this connection.
(AD)
*** GERARD CLIQUET, JEAN-MICHEL JOSSELIN (Eds): Stratégies de localisation des entreprises commerciales et industrielles. De Boeck (39, rue des Minimes. B-1000 Brussels). Tel: (00-32) (0)2 548 07 11 - Fax: 5139009 - Internet: http: //http://www.deboeck.be/ - Email: acces+cde@deboeck.be) "Economie, société, région" series 2002, 312 pp. ISBN 2-8041-3948-4.
A major element of the strategies of commercial and industrial companies, decisions on where to be located, "are based on methods or analysis, and perceptions of the market have to be accompanied by the necessary desire for operationability". The book contains essays by Belgian, Italian, French and Anglo-Saxon specialists and "puts forward a revised perspective" for questions of company location, focussing on the impact of decisions by public authorities. Gérard Cliquet is associate university professor at the Institut de Gestion in Rennes and is Director of the Institut d recherche européen sur les institutions et les marchés. Jean-Michel Josselin is senior lecturer at the Economic Science Faculty of the University of Rennes 1 and member of the Rennes Economics and Management Research Centre.
(AD)
*** The EUROPEAN COMMISSION (Official Publications Office of the European Communities, L-2985, Luxembourg, http: //publications.eu.int) has published the following documents:
*** RTD Info. DG Research (Fax: (32-2) 2959971- Fax: 2958220 - E-mail: research@cec.eu.int or rtd-info@cec.eu.int - Internet: http: //europa.eu.int/comm/research). October 2002, special issue, 32pp. Free subscription.
"EU enlargement: a new frontier for European research" or how to prepare research for enlargement is the subject of this special edition of DG Research's RTD Info newsletter. Research is described as a sector where the enlargement of the EU can be of fastest benefit both to the Member States and to candidate countries. We learn, for example, that from 2003 onwards, the candidate countries will have full access to the financial support available under the Research Development Programme. The newsletter also explains that the extension of the EU's R&D capacities through the accession of 13 new countries will, in parallel, amplify the creation of the European Research Area and encourage scientific excellence, guide innovation, feed into economic growth, create new jobs and improve European citizens' quality of life.
*** Travailler dans un autre pays de l'Union européenne. DG Internal Market/Dialogue with citizens. (Tel. (Europe direct): 00800067891011 - http: //europa.eu.int/citizens). 2002, 22pp. Free publication.
Working in another country in the European Union is a challenge that many of us could take up. This brochure outlines the practical details that one has to know in order to consider making such a decision. It describes citizens' rights according to professional activity (unemployed, employed, freelance, retired, etc). There are answers to questions concerning access to employment, the recognition of diplomas, working conditions, trade union rights, residence and establishment rights, social rights, taxation and data protection.
*** Travelling in another EU country. DG Internal Market / Dialogue with citizens and business. (Tel. (Europe direct): 00800067891011 - http: //europa.eu.int/citizens). 2002, 22pp. Free publication.
This brief guide announces that EU citizens have various rights and opportunities that they are not always aware of. The guide gives the answers to questions such as: What should I take with me when travelling? What highway code rules apply in other countries? How do I register my vehicle? Insurance? What tax system applies to my purchases?
*** Provincia informa. Notizie sulle politiche comunitarie. Provincia di Torino (3 via Maria Vittoria - I-10123 Turin). November 2002, No. 11.
This issue the debates surrounding the biggest European Forum on Employment, Economic Development and Training, at which the Province of Turin was a leading light. Other issues covered include promoting enterprise initiatives in Europe, Information Society activities, and an introduction to two countries from the range of candidate countries, namely Slovakia and Latvia.
In brief
*** Slovenia News. December 2002, Ljubljana. Much of this issue is given over to this autumn's presidential elections in Slovenia. *** Hémisphères. October-November 2002, Brussels. The newsletter of debates on development issues discusses the relevance of NEPAD, arms sales to Nepal and the Cotonou Accords characterised by confrontation. It finishes on the same bitter note with an article with the evocative heading: "Publishing exploits the South too". *** Taipei aujourd'hui. November 2002, Taiwan. The magazine's heading concerns young Taiwanese looking outwards to the rest of the world. Young Taiwanese are in fact going to study in the United States and, more recently, in China, whereas in the past foreigners used to come to Taiwan to be trained. The country is opening up to the world, and to Europe in particular. Europe has become one of Taiwan's main trading partners. As proof of this, the European Parliament itself is taking an interest in issues concerning Taiwan.