** FERNAND HERMAN: Europa Patria Mea. Chronique de 15 années de vie politique, économique et sociale européenne. Didier Devillez Editeur (53 rue Emmanuel Van Driessche, B-1050 Brussels. Internet: http://www.devillez.be ). 2006, 286 pp. ISBN 2-87396-071-X.
"Fernand Herman belongs to a special category of people, which I am also proud to belong to, namely EIGs, European Institutional Grumblers"… These words of Jean-Louis Bourlanges - who, in the fifteen years covered in this book, has been an MEP alongside the author, Fernand Herman, whom he has often worked alongside - bring to mind among people who knew him his both rigorous and fighting spirit, who could write as clear as another Belgian, Herge (of Tintin fame) without ever over-simplifying. An MEP since the first direct European elections in June 1979 (four terms of office), Fernand Herman was also a regular columnist for the Courrier de la Bourse et de la Banque newspaper for fifteen years. This book is a collection of his essays, mostly on European affairs (see EUROPE No. 9183 on the tribute recently paid to Fernand Herman at the European Parliament).
In plenary and on parliamentary committees, one often heard Fernand Herman talking about economics and monetary affairs (along with the European constitution) but his main concern - as is demonstrated in the articles - was democratic legitimacy and openness before 'transparency' became a buzz word, along with fighting the 'deadly poison' (as Bourlanges puts it) of the 'administrative confiscation' of the European Union. Institutional issues dominate these chronicles, starting with the 'small' summit (as Herman describes it) in Rome in December 1990, and ending with the badly launched debate of December 2004, expressing the regret that enlargement to the East has not given rise to reaffirmation of the aims and nature of the European project. But in an often premonitionary manner, Fernand Herman moves on to look at all the topics that were, and still are, on the EU agenda, like the terrorist threat, the role of China (in 1993, Herman asked whether the EU was prepared to take on such a huge challenge), relations with Africa (he wrote in 1994 that 'we are all guilty' of the shame of Rwanda), transatlantic relations, the World Trade Organisation, population and development issues and the explosion of the information society. Always with the same impassioned but marshalled tone, often discontent but never giving up.
In a postscript, two of his former colleagues at the European Parliament talk about this exemplary European. Germany Social Democrat Jo Leinen, President of the European Parliament's Constitutional Committee, writes on the 1994 Herman Report on 'A Constitution for Europe' and Herman's chairing of the European Federalists of Belgium movement in difficult years. German Christian Democrat Karl von Wogau, President of the European Parliament's security and defence subcommittee, who is a member of the EPP (later the EPP-ED) group like Herman himself, writes about Fernand Herman as a defender of the European Economic Union. Fernand Herman was also involved in the struggle to scrap borders in Europe and, along with Karl von Wogau, Dieter Rogalla and Basil de Ferranti, was a founder of the highly active Kangaroo Group.
Lidia Gazzo
*** ALTIERO SPINELLI (Edited by Luciano Angelino): Il linguaggio notturno. Il Melangolo (3-1 via di Porta Soprana, Genoa. Internet: http://www.ilmelangolo.com ). 2006, 172 pp. ISBN 88-7018-596-6.
'Night language' repels others because it is pure monologue and differs from realistic 'day language', but in order to be able to write about day language with any assurance, one has to understand night language. In a way, Altiero Spinelli deals in the chapter on 'solitary meditation' with thought and action, both of which he is familiar with, in the first chapter of this collection of essays on varied themes, written at different periods, with core essays ranging from his Ventotene 'confino' (house arrest) in 1939 to liberation in 1943. Luciano Angelino, one of the most faithful and perspicacious observers of Spinelli's work, provides a remarkable description of the essays in the introduction. The essays are grouped in five chapters, on 'The others', 'Power and Freedom', 'Love', 'Friendship' and 'Animals'.
Spinelli was "secretive and esoteric" writes Luciano Angelino, describing one aspect of his personality, but those who knew him will recognise at every stage in these unusual essays his burning intelligence, critical and self-critical spirit of a man who, in his youth, rejected any kind of totalitarianism, first Fascist and then Communist. In a biographical chapter dating back to 1941, Spinelli writes: "The Communist experiment was very important for me for learning the value of discipline and organisation, but in terms of learning to sense reality, it was useless, negative even". But in the articles, Spinelli goes well beyond the political commitment that was the leitmotif of his exceptional path, analysing friendship (loving one's neighbour means 'loving them the way they are, accepting their stupidity, vanity and touchiness') and love in beautiful pages, 'corresponding with solitude' with his future wife Ursula Hirschmann. The collection ends with three astonishing articles on animals, demonstrating the author's extraordinary sense of observation. Spiders, cockroaches, chickens and cockerels and how they behave, all observed during his exile in Ventotene are pages where daily life meshes with myth, and in which Spinelli is a writer, pure and simple. (LGa)
*** MONICA CLAES: The National Courts' Mandate in the European Constitution. Hart Publishing (Salters Boatyard, Folly Bridge, Abingdon Road, Oxford, OX1 4LB, UK. Tel: (44-1865) 245533 - Fax: 794882 - e-mail: mail@hartpub.co.uk - Internet: http//: http://www.hartpub.co.uk ). "Modern Studies in European Law" series, No. 5. 2006, 771 pp. ISBN 1-84113-476-7.
The title of this book would suggest that it is limited to discussing the matter in the framework of the constitutional treaty, but the author goes well beyond this. A lecturer at the European and International Public Law Department of Tilburg University in the Netherlands, Monica Claes looks at one of the novel specificities of the European Union, namely the relationship between national courts and the European Union. She first looks at the way ordinary national courts have adjusted to the powers developed by the European Court of Justice, where 'Community law brings on a transmutation of the functions of national courts acting as Community judges'. But this can lead to clashes, as she explains: 'Yet, for the national courts the instructions from Luxembourg become problematic when they do not coincide with the national (constitutional) role … the Court of Justice 'frees' the national courts from internal constitutional rules when interpreting and applying Community law'. The author then looks at the more rigid relations between the European Court of Justice and national courts with constitutional powers, which do not take kindly to being asked to give up their role as guardians of the national constitution. The book then sets the first two areas of discussion against the backdrop of the debate surrounding the constitutional treaty. As Monica Claes explains: 'Courts merely make up the perspective adopted in the book, the underlying theme is much greater and encompasses many different issues' like the relationship between legal systems, protection of the individual and the independence of national parliaments. (FRo)
*** GEORGES LEWI: L'Europe, une mauvaise marque ? Editions Vuibert (20 rue Berbier-du-Mets, F-75647 Paris cedex 13. Tel: (33-1) 44084912 - Fax: 44084949 - Internet: http://www.vuibert.fr ). 2006, 148 pp. ISBN 2-7117-4330-6.
A specialist in trademark protection, Georges Lewi has decided to wear his trademark spectacles to understand, one year on, what lay behind the French and Dutch no votes in the referendums on the constitution and the general scepticism he, along with everyone else, observes in European society. As Jean-Marie Cavada notes in the preface, he draws a daring parallel, forcing the analogy a little at times. It is not easy to accept, for example, the idea of European citizens compared with consumers of public life, 'consumo-citizens'. But when Georges Lewi comments that national and European powers use television advertising to get us to vote, alongside washing powder adverts, with similar budgets and using the same advertising agencies and techniques, one's appetite is whetted and one ventures to take a taste. The author explains in the book how the Europe trademark was created, based on solidarity at first, followed by economic solidarity, and how its fiftieth birthday was problematic - as is always the case for trademarks that have to reinvent themselves and what they represent to approach a third generation of consumers. He explains the difficult enlargement of the trademark's coverage and its status on the world stage (leader, challenger, follower or niche) … An unusual and striking book, sometimes quite literally. (MT)
*** FRITZ W. SCHARPF: Problem Solving Effectiveness and Democratic Accountability. Institut für Höhere Studien (56 Stumpergasse, A-1060 Vienna. Tel: (43-1) 59991-237 - Fax: 59991-555 - e-mail: library@ihs.ac.at - Internet: http://www.ihs.ac.at ). "Political Science" series, No. 107. 2006, 31 pp, €6. Annual subscription: €40.
Although the question of the European Union's democratic deficit has often been raised, the legitimacy of the EU institutions has not tended to be challenged in recent decades and, as Fritz Sharpf comments: "The reason may well have been that European policies were not thought to violate politically salient interests”. The author starts by giving an overview of the EU's sources of legitimacy and modes of government (supranational, joint decisions and intergovernmental). He deduces that although the policies carried out by the European Community do not raise any genuine legitimacy problems, "the institutional need to avoid policy choices that would give rise to politically salient conflicts" hugely reduces the EU's ability to solve problems of legitimacy. The author reasons from this that while Member States are becoming ever more dependent on EU solutions for managing problematic fallout of the success of the European project, "the expected result is a growing problem-solving gap in policy areas where the EU generates problems and constrains solutions at national levels while effective solutions at the European level are blocked by political conflicts among member governments". But Fritz Sharpf does not stop there. He goes on to suggest solutions, believing for example that the idea that EU policies have to give rise to uniform rules, applied across all Member States in the same manner, needs to be rethought. Faced with the problem of how to move from a consensus form of government to a qualified majority voting form of government within the EU, the author believes that groups of Member States should be allowed to use consensus decision-making to find solutions within those groups of countries. Fritz Sharpf, as one can see, gets straight to the point in this slim volume of little more than two dozen pages, written with discipline and detachment, with carefully marshalled ideas tackling the heart of the matter. (FRo)
*** KLAUS H. GOETZ: Territory, Temporality and Clustered Europeanization. Institut für Höhere Studien (see above). "Political Science" series, No. 109. 2006, 19 pp, €6. Annual subscription: €40.
It is generally acknowledged that the countries that make up the European Union have not made huge progress in terms of converging on a single governance model. Although some countries are similar to others and therefore form clusters, divergence is still the general rule. Along with outlining factors justifying the thesis of such clusters, Klaus Goetz focusses on understanding the causes. To this end, the uses a double perspective to detect the domestic and European integration-connected variables that can explain the clusters in terms of time and place. Studying place from the domestic standpoint allows the emergence of 'families of nations' with common geographical, linguistic and cultural traits. In terms of variables connected with the European project, countries can be classified geographically according to whether they are located in the centre of the European Union (or one of the centres) or on the periphery. When it comes to time, this can be used at domestic level to gain better understanding of convergence and divergence among countries according to their domestic situation at the time they joined the European Union. The feeling of benefitting from joining the EU in terms of democracy is probably stronger in Southern European countries which joined in the 1980s soon after emerging from dictatorships, than in the countries in the most recent round of enlargement which had seen much water flow under the bridge since their liberation from Communism. The idea of time with connection with European integration highlights differences among countries in accordance with the period of the European project at which they joined. While not denying that his approach can be challenged from the academic and empirical viewpoints, the author provides some very useful food for thought on the formation of clusters of countries with different levels of Europeanisation, which could be usefully extended to Europeanisation in general and its limits.
(FRo)
*** Revue du Marché commun et de l'Union européenne. Editions techniques et économiques (3 rue Soufflot, F-75005 Paris. Tel: (33-1) 55426130 - Fax: 55426139 - e-mail: editecom@starnet.fr - Internet: http://www.editecom.com ). May 2006, No. 498, 60 pp. Annual subscription: €187 (France), €222 (elsewhere).
Along with very interesting articles on ITER, fusion, missed opportunities for European integration because the constitution has not come into force, and implementing the biotech invention protection directive, this issue of this well-known review explains, fifty years on, how the Spaak-Uri Report on relaunching Europe could still be an inspiration…
(MT)