*** HELEN DRAKE: Jacques Delors en Europe. Histoire et sociologie d'un leadership improbable. Presses universitaires de Strasbourg (Palais universitaire, 9 place de l'Université, Strasbourg). "Sociologie politique européenne" series. 2002, 253 pp, 16 euros. ISBN 2-86820-203-9.
"Jacques Delors can in many ways be considered the leading European statesman born by accident, whom the quest for personal and collective influence in the political process of the European project inadvertently but irresistibly led into a struggle for legitimacy on his own behalf and on behalf of the Commission"… In this remarkable book, first written in English (published by Routledge in 2000 with the title "Jacques Delors. Perspectives on a European leader"), Helen Drake examines in an enlightened and equally rigorous manner the combination of personal, sociological and political factors that led to the "Delors phenomenon" that some people still look back to nostalgically. Reader at the European Studies Department of Loughborough University in the UK, the author makes use of five interviews with Delors himself, along with interviews with thirty or so individuals who were close to him (from Lord Cockfield to David Williamson via François Lamoureux, Pascal Lamy and Emile Noël, for example, and also people from academia) in order to research her subject matter.
In the introduction entitled (in the French version) "Un leader en représentation(s)", Drake examines and is at pains to clarify the "Jacques Delors factor" starting from a specific perspective: his impact on the controversial issues of legitimacy and the legitimacy of authority in the European Union. She sets Mr Delors as an individual, and the concept of leadership, in context from the starting point that Delors "exercised in his own way at supranational scale the power of a statesman who updated the logic, or at least a logic, of the Community system". The researcher goes on the explain: "The experimental democracy launched by the Community's founding fathers has always concealed within it the eventuality of a federal type political system with its own government and its own leadership. Jacques Delors demonstrated in practice, and to an extent unwillingly, the scale that this democratic experimentation could take through optimising and mobilising the Commission's resources in conditions that were favourable, at the start at least, both by change and by design. He ended up personifying an institution and, indirectly, a political system reputed until that point of being the expression of a headless pluralism".
How did Jacques Delors achieve this? To find out, Helen Drake takes a thematic approach supplemented with a chronological perspective. She starts by explaining and interpreting Delors' professional career pre-1985, highlighting the lines of continuity that crossed the successive stages in his public life. In France, the "lack of traditional ambition and political commitment" of this man avoiding elected positions, of this "democrat with social Christian convictions" turned him into a "political orphan". In the European context, however, "his relatively flexible political affiliations, combined with a deep sense of the need for social reform, were an advantage for achieving compromises favourable to the European general interest, while at the same time his personal and personnalist philosophy gave meaning to the European project at crucial moments, continually motivating it and enabling it to remain in step with the Christian Democrat inspired spirit of the founders of the Community". In the third chapter Helen Drake describes the various "marriages" of the Commission and its Presidents since the time of Jean Monnet's High Authority. Here she lists a table of factors governing the "quantity" of the Commission's supranational authority at a particular point in time, the degree of tolerance it is granted in this connection (in other words its legitimacy), and another important point, the role played by the Commission President in forming perception and reality regarding the role of the Commission in the Community system. Chapters Four and Five shed light on two periods seen as the high and low points of the Delors Presidency: first of all the second half of the 1980s which was a time when the Commission, through its White Paper on the great market without internal borders, won back its authority to forward economic integration; and then the restrictions of authority experienced by Delors and his Commission in the first half of the 1990s, in the light of the way the 1993 White Paper was received. The final chapter then reviews Delors' final years at the Commission and what he has been doing since his return to Paris. What he has been doing but also what he has refused to do, particularly his refusal to stand for French President. The author asserts that his activities and refusals follow on from the "principles of reflection and policy that have been confirmed and proven" for fifty years. Michel Theys
*** EDWARD BEST, DANIELLE BOSSAERT (Editors): From Luxembourg to Lisbon and Beyond. Making the Employment Strategy Work. European Institute of Public Administration (P. O. Box 1229, NL-6201 BE Maastricht. Internet: http://www.eipa.nl ). 2002, 127 pp, EUR 27.20. ISBN 90-6779-170-9.
In this book, several writers give their opinions on the future of the European Employment Strategy (EES), launched in 1997 in Luxembourg during a Special European Council devoted entirely to employment. All agree that the EES is a significant step forward in getting the idea of greater European responsibility for employment accepted, as well as that of social protection. Since 1997, ten million jobs have been created and four million unemployed have found jobs. It is, nevertheless too early to measure the scale of the strategy's impact.
According to the Swedish Ambassador Gunnar Lund, one of the positive aspects of the EES is to have brought the "social" issue onto the agenda.. Theo Langejan, Director General at the Ministry for Social Affairs and Employment in The Hague, shares this view, but also focuses on the fact that the power of the EES should not be overestimated, which according to him and other contributors, will probably never produce any major change. the question of the Strategy's usefulness in the perspective of enlargement is also tackled in the book. Hélène Clark-Dageville, Head of the DG Employment and Social Affairs Unit at the Commission, thus analyses the differences between the labour markets in candidate countries and those of the fifteen Member States. She explains that the convergence of candidate countries in attaining the EES objectives will be difficult but not impossible and that the EES can also be adapted to the enlarged Union.
(ML)
*** Coopération Sud. Social Policy: safety net or trampoline? United Nations Development Programme (One United Nations Plaza, New York, NY 10017, USA. Tel: (1-212) 9065737 - Fax: 9066352 - E-mail: cosmas.gitta@undp.org). 2001, 191 pp.
This publication of the United Nations Development Programme draws a certain number of lessons from co-operation programmes. In many developing countries, globalisation has aggravated insecurity where the traditional safeguards of societies no longer provide the necessary protection to vulnerable and distribute groups of people; in other areas, far from strengthening the capability of the State to help these groups, the assistance offered has been reduced. Family resources and social networks have almost been exhausted, while the means of production have deteriorated and are no longer used to deal with their original goals of responding to people's immediate and daily needs, subsequently pushing greater numbers into poverty and social exclusion. "Coopération Sud" presents recent experiences on which a number of options are based in terms of forming social policy. These include measures that could (if they were adopted) help relieve poverty, promote human development and generate solid economic growth. (LD)
*** ROSI BRAIDOTTI: Gender, Identity and Multiculturalism in Europe. Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, European University Institute (Badia Fiesolana, 9 via dei Roccettini, I-50016 San Domenico di Fiesole, Italy). 2001, 41 pp.
This document summarises recent research by Rosi Braidotti, lecturer at Utrecht University, into gender issues. The research was carried out at the European University Institute of Florence in the framework of a Jean Monnet grant. The document is divided into three sections. The first defines the terms of the problem, in other words the issue of identity in a European perspective. The researcher notes from the start that the issue of European identity does not fully coincide with the question of the European Union and that she will only be concentrating on the latter. She takes her essay back to the historical dimension of the aftermath of the Second World War. The second section sketches out potential models on the contribution of gender methodology and the philosophical tradition that criticises French post-structuralism. The third attempts to put forward an analytical framework for the interconnected issues of gender, multiculturalism and European identities. (MF)
*** LUISA PASSERINI, DAWN LYON, LIANA BORGHI (Eds.): Gender Studies in Europe - Studi di genere in Europa. Conference Proceedings. Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, European University Institute (see above). 2002, 170 pp.
The European University Institute of Florence's Gender Studies Programme has launched a series of lectures, known as the Ursula Hirschmann lectures, on the link between gender and Europe. Ursula Hirschmann was born in Berlin in 1913 into a Jewish family. She emigrated when the Nazis seized Germany, moving first to France and then to Italy. In 1975, she founded the group "Femmes pour l'Europe" in Brussels. The Ursula Hirschmann lectures aim to foster greater understanding of the gender connection in European issues, and to develop a concept of Europe that recognises differences, including gender differences. This publication publishes lectures from the series by researchers from various European universities (in Italy, Denmark, Sweden, Belgium, France, etc). Following a general introduction looking at the Scandinavian and Italian experiences, two round tables were organised, the first on transition and transmission and the second on cultural resources. (MF)
*** ANNE-MARIE LIZIN: Objectif égalité. Six années de présidence au Conseil des Femmes francophones de Belgique. Editions Luc Pire (publisher) (37-39 quai aux Pierres de taille, B-1000 Brussels, B-1000 Brussels. E-mail: editions@lucpire.be - Internet: http: //http://www.lucpire.be ).2002, 62 p.. ISBN 2-8741-5255-2.
In this book of interviews with the journalist Genovefa Etienne, the woman who was Belgian Secretary of State for EUROPE 1992 relates the battles she waged in women's interests. (MT)
*** GERHARD FINK, WOLFGANG KOLLER: Die Kreditwürdigkeit von Unternehmen im Hinblick auf die Wirtschafts- und Währungsunion - Wien im österreichischen Vergleich. Forschungsinstitut für Europafragen der Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien (39-45 Althanstr., A-1090 Vienna. Tel: (43-1) 31336/ 4135 - Fax: 31336 758, 756 - E-mail: europafragen2@wu-wien.ac.at). "IEF Working Papers" No. 41. 2001, 114 pp, 7.20 euros.
The financial credit rating of companies in Vienna compared with that in other regions of Austria, and also in the light of Economic and Monetary Union, is considered in this study by two researchers from the European Affairs Research Institute of Vienna's Business University. Based on empirical and statistical analysis of four indicators (cash flow success, cash flow risk, indebtedness and finance costs), Fink and Koller look in depth for each economic sector at differences between the financial situation of companies in Vienna and the situation facing companies in the rest of Austria in the period 1989-1996. A study of microeconomicc study aimed at specialists. (PB)
*** BERND LÜTHJE (Ed.): Verbandsbericht 2001/2002. Bundesverband Öffentlicher Banken Deutschlands (Postfach 110272, D-10832 Berlin. Tel: (49-30) 8192-0 / 161 - Fax: 8192-222 - E-mail: postmaster@voeb.de - Internet: http: //http://www.voeb.de ). 2002, 376 pp. ISBN 3-927466-72-7.
The German Association of Public Banks, which has an office in Brussels, gives information in its Annual Report on the activities of its institutions and members and also on the political and legal ramifications of the financial sector at domestic and European level. Issues covered in greater depth include the Fair Value Directive, new comitology regulations and procedures following the Community's 1999 Financial Services Action Plan and the report by the Lamfalussy group in 2001, along with consultation and negotiation in the framework of the Basel Committee for banking control (new Basel II/Brussels process, with a good illustrative table). A well structured, readable publication providing a precise and concise exhaustive panorama of the public banking sector in Germany and a synthetic assessment of expert discussions on the great European themes and common financial market deficits. An abridged version of the report is available in English. (PB)
*** GIORGIO NATALICCHI: Wiring Europe. Reshaping the European Telecommunications Regime. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers (4720 Boston Way, Lanham, Maryland 20706. Tel: (1-800) 4626420 Internet: http://www.rowmanlittlefield.com ). "Governance in Europe" series. 2001, 245 pp. ISBN 0-8476-9909-9.
Associate Professor of Political Science at Florence University, Giorgio Natalicchi provides highly penetrating theoretical and empirical analysis in his book on the European Union's Telecommunications Policy. The study is essential reading for people wishing to understand the position of the liberalisation of the telecommunications market in the regulatory phenomenon at supranational level in Europe. (LD)
*** The Official Publications Office of the European Communities, L-2985, Luxembourg, http: //publications.eu.int has published the following documents:
*** Cordis Focus. DG Enterprise (Fax: (352-4301) 32084 - E-mail: innovation@cec.eu.int - Internet: http://www.cordis.lu/news ). January 2003, No. 39, 44pp.
This supplement to Cordis Focus discusses the opportunities provided by technology. It outlines the outcome of the latest research, mainly in the areas of biology and medicine, energy, the environment and telecommunications, but also in terms of industrial technology. The resounding success stories covered include the real time detection of genetic abnormalities using fluorescence, the micro-algae project and disposing of heavy metals.
*** Cordis Focus. DG Enterprise (see above - Internet: http://www.cordis.lu/trendchart ). December 2002, No. 19, 36 pp.
The "European Innovation Trend Chart 2002" was drawn from DG Enterprise's "European Trend Chart on Innovation", a practical tool designed for decision makers and programme managers concerned with innovation. This Trend Chart" has the aim of collecting, regularly updating and analysing information about information policies at national and Community level, focussing on the funding of innovation, the creation and development of innovating companies, protecting intellectual property and technology transfer between research and industry. The "Trend Chart" contains seventeen fundamental indicators split into four groups - human resources for innovation; the creation of new knowledge; the transmission and application of knowledge and funding; and the production of and the markets for innovation.
*** Paving the way for EU enlargement. Indicators of transport and environment integration. European Environment Agency (6 Kongens Nytorv, DK-1050 Copenhagen K - Fax: (45) 33367100 - E-mail: eea@eea.eu.int - Internet: http: //eea.eu.int). 2002, No. 32, 60pp, 15 euros. ISBN 92-9167-517-2.
This report from the European Environment Agency is the third looking at transport indicators taking account of environmental and enlargement imperatives. Some people put forward the idea that the transport sector will be the key factor in the socio-economic development of the new Member States and that there is a danger of overestimating current transport capacity and losing sight of sustainability, the only factor that can properly assure this objective. The publication draws attention to the fact that candidate countries are at risk of finding themselves with models based on the unsustainable models of the current Member States if preventative action is not rapidly planned.
*** Greenhouse gas emission trends and projections in Europe. European Environment Agency (see above). 2002, No. 33, 76 pp, 17.50 euros. ISBN 92-9167-525-3.
In this series of publications looking at changes in the move towards sustainability of the European environment, there is the new concern of discovering whether the new Member States will be able to meet the Kyoto objectives. In fact, it is essential for everyone to deal with climate change, including candidate countries, but since the candidates are still confronted with major economic problems it would appear to be a good common sense approach to query whether they will respect environmental standards. The commitment to the principle exists, but it remains to be seen how it will be implemented. This report analyses national programmes and control mechanisms. It paints a mixed picture, good results cheek by jowl with disastrous …
*** Liaisons sociales Europe. Groupe Liaisons sociales (1 av. Edouard-Belin, F-92500 Rueil-Malmaison. Tel: (33-1) 41299623 - Fax: 299670 - Internet: http://www.liaisons-sociales ). 14/27 November 2002, No. 67, 8 pp, 25 euros.
Enlargement is considered from the social angle in this issue, under the heading "Ten candidate countries between the European social model and ultra-liberalism". The alarm bell is rung over candidate countries' duty to "manage a situation steeped in contradictions", since the candidate countries "have to absorb the European social model while reaching levels of growth that the current EU countries have never experienced". Also covered in this issue: social dialogue in the candidate countries (which "remains formal"), the agreement on social responsibility and Alcatel's restructuring plan.