SUPPLEMENT /

*** MICHAEL KUHN, RONALD G. SULTANA (Eds.): Homo Sapiens Europæus? Creating the European Learning Citizen. Peter Lang Publishing (29 Broadway, NY 10006 New York. Internet: http://www.peterlangusa.com ). 2006, 298 pp. ISBN 0-8204-7600-5.

This book emerged from the network on "Towards the European Society: challenges for education and training policies and research arising from the European integration and enlargement" (EURONE&T), established as part of the EU's 5th Framework Programme for Research and Development. Putting the learning citizen at the heart of its work and spreading the net wide in its study of learning in Europe, the network does not restrict itself to education and training and also moves beyond the strictly European viewpoint and bursts out of a strictly economic and institutional straitjacket. The study aims to define what a learning citizen and a learning society actually are in the European Union's concept of lifelong learning. The book starts by pointing out that the idea of lifelong learning is nothing new. It has played a role in various European countries since the eighteenth century, not to mention the fact that "it has a long history based in the concept of the world of various civilisations and cultural traditions, including those that arose in China, India, Ancient Greece, medieval Arabia and the Renaissance in Europe", explains Lê Thành Khôi, quoted by Khun and Sultana. Why write a book on the subject? Because the concept of continuous learning from the cradle to the grave has made a forceful comeback in political speech-writing. And the European Commission has also been affected by this - dipping into national educational ideas, combining them and filtering them before re-injecting them at national level, creating a degree of European harmonisation of the idea of lifelong learning. It is a key concept in the Lisbon Strategy, for example.

The essays in this book, mostly written by Europeans but with a scattering of articles by researchers based in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, look at the issue from five viewpoints - the production of contemporary discourse on lifelong learning (strongly influenced by the European Commission's publication of the "Life Long Learning Memorandum"), its ideological background, the idea of a learning citizen and a learning society, the construction of the citizen, and the relationship between the European Union, the learning society and Member States. Palle Rasmusen, for example, demonstrates how current lifelong learning takes a different form in Denmark these days than in the past. Denmark is often quoted as a model in terms of its social structure (and its 'flexicurity'), and continuous education has been well established ever since the start of the twentieth century, with schools for adults enjoying huge success. The author notes that while continuous education was considered in the past mainly as a way of developing individuals as citizens, and thereby the whole of society, it now tends to be considered from the utilitarian viewpoint of professional training. While lifelong learning has almost become a moral duty these days, it is also part of a neoliberal ideological backdrop, although the Commission decided to powder its discourse with notions of 'personal development', 'active citizenship' and 'social inclusion' following the reactions it encountered during the consultation process. Various essays suggest that this 'educational gospel' instils what may prove to be unfounded optimism, unjustified by continuous education's ability to resolve a number of problems. Livingstone is quoted by the authors, who has noted since the end of the Second World War an exponential growth in informal work-related training and the number of people who have followed higher education, but the proportion of jobs predominantly based on 'knowledge work' has only experienced a marginal increase. Which leads him to say that 'we are already living in a knowledge-based society in terms of formal and informal education, but not yet in terms of a knowledge-based economy".

Would that mean then that we are in the process of putting the cart before the horse? Also, at the end of the day, are we moving (and do we want to move) towards a society where individuals are aware of the role they play in society and can work towards the development of society as a whole along with their own personal development by being aware of a cause - Europe of the citizens - or instead, are we moving towards a society where learning has the main vocation of producing individuals solely moulded to fill the role assigned to them by the economy - Europe of the oxen? To sum up, this basic question runs through this entire book …

Frederik Ronse

*** MICHAEL KUHN, MASSIMO TOMASSINI, P. ROBERT-JAN SIMONS (Eds): Towards a knowledge based economy? Knowledge and Learning in European Educational Research. Peter Lang Publishing (see above). 2006, 246 pp. ISBN 0-8204-7470-3.

This book is a good supplement to the above-reviewed "Homo Sapiens Europæus?". The authors consider the foundations of the 'machines first' direction in which the European Union was moving and the change to a knowledge based economy. First of all, however, what exactly is a knowledge based economy? Michael Kuhn starts off by explaining with a pithy dose of malice that the European Commission itself doesn't seem so sure that it has all the answers despite the fact that all the social science research under the 6th Framework Programme for R&D (which covers virtually all the key points of EU policies) are oriented towards a "knowledge based society". The Director of the European Regional Research Forum at Bremen University, for example, writes that: "As if the Commission wanted to prove the total absence of knowledge about the model of society that guides its policies, research programmes also mention understanding knowledge and policies based on knowledge for a knowledge based society as research subjects on which there is no knowledge and which therefore require additional research". This book starts by trying to define the concepts of knowledge, learning and subjectivity (the way 'learning citizens' are understood) in the form in which they are present in the EU's education research programmes. The second part looks in more detail at learning in the professional context, and the last part considers the way information and communication technologies are addressed in research into education. Some articles argue in favour of a knowledge based society, while others are more sceptical. All of them criticise the excess economic reductionism of the model currently put forward by the European Union.

(FRo)

*** CHRTISTIAN S. NISSEN (Ed.): Faire la différence. La radiodiffusion de service public dans le paysage audiovisuel européen. John Libbey Publishing (Box 276, Eastleigh SO50 5YS, UK. e-mail: [e-mail] - Internet: http://www.johnlibbey.com ). 2006, 238 pp. ISBN 0-86196-687-2.

The preface to this fine tome was written by former Czech President Václav Havel, who says that public service broadcasters are vital institutions in society for culture and democracy, and this truth is only getting stronger with European integration, the emergence of a huge international media market and the new opportunities provided by digital technology. These ideas by such a leading moral and intellectual figurehead cannot fail to make one stop and think. But all the same, the world has changed and at a time when private radio and television channels can be counted in their thousands, it is just as natural today to question the presence of public bodies in the media industry as it was logical to accept the existence and work of public service broadcasters at the time they were state monopolies. This comment by the book's editor raises a whole series of questions. Do public broadcasters still have any raison d'être? What are their cultural duties, their political role and their mission against the backdrop of duality characterising the European media market? What changes will new media, the internet and digital technology bring in their wake and how will they impact on media markets? What role do government and parliament play vis-à-vis public broadcasters and what are the repercussions of EU rules on the media industry? Are public media bodies genuinely different or are they dinosaurs facing extinction in this new, unexplored media landscape of modern Europe? This collection of articles commissioned by the European Radio-Television Union provides enlightening answers, all the more credible in that they study both sides of the argument. One article deserving particular attention is one where two experts analyse the European dimension 'from Amsterdam to Altmark' in terms of public service funding, ending with this incisive comment by French expert Dominique Wolton: "The audiovisual market illustrates the constant contradiction of Europe - being both a political project that wants to move beyond economics and also an immense market that is part of global deregulation".

(MT)

*** RENE ANDRE: Budget de l'Union européenne pour 2007: une nouvelle impulsion ? Délégation pour l'Union européenne de l'Assemblée nationale (Boutique de l'Assemblée nationale, 4 rue Aristide Briand, F-75007 Paris. Tel: [phone] - Internet: http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr ). "Rapport d'information", No. 3240. 2006, 81 pp, €3-50. ISBN 2-11-121386-1.

Last December, EU heads of state finally managed to agree on the EU's Financial Perspectives for 2007-2013, in other words, they set the EU's budget for the next seven years. The preliminary draft budget for 2007 is the first stage of applying the new budget, but 2007 should also see the launch of a series of EU multi-annual projects and, as is looking ever more likely, the accession of Romania and Bulgaria, which leads some analysts to suggest that the EU budget will have to have extra resources to cope with all this. Other analysts, however, stress that the budget also has to take account for measures already under way, along, more importantly, with the budget discipline that largely determined the outcome of the compromise Financial Perspectives deal. Clearly, the ingredients for a new budget battle are already in place. This news letter is useful because it analyses and comments upon the European Commission's proposals. French parliamentarian René André first looks at the new structure and the new instruments in the draft budget, and also at the budget discipline that spending has to adhere to, before advancing some ideas about potential reform of the EU's budget system. In the second part of the newsletter, he looks at how Romania and Bulgaria's accession will be dealt with, and the Lisbon Strategy's place in the budget.

(NDu)

*** JORG RAHN: Equilibrium Exchange Rates of Central and Eastern European Countries on the Road to the European Monetary Union. Peter Lang (1 Moosstrasse, Postfach 350, CH-2542 Pieterlen. Tel: [phone] - Fax: [phone] - e-mail: [e-mail] - Internet: http://www.peterlang.de ). "European University Studies - Europäische Hochschulschriften - Publications Universitaires Européennes" series, No. 3161. 2005, 199 p. ISBN 3-631-54243-7.

Two years ago, the EU welcomed ten new countries on board, mostly from Eastern and Central Europe. Since then, these countries have been following a process of adjustment to be able to join the EU structure as efficiently as possible. This book looks at the economics of integration and these countries' membership of European Monetary Union. Every country has to take part in the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM II) for at least two years before it can consider joining the euro, as was the case for the current members of the eurozone. Joining ERM II means setting a reference exchange rate and this can have serious economic repercussions - if the rate is set too low, the country's exports will suffer from lack of competitiveness, but if it is too high, the country will be vulnerable to speculation and other risks, which is why a balanced exchange rate is required. Jörg Rahn suggests three ways of calculating balanced exchange rates - behavioural, permanent and an adjusted method based on the parity purchasing power method. The author then examines the exchange rates of countries of Central and Eastern Europe, focusing on the systems used, providing various algebraic tools for determining real exchange rates and providing empirical data on the application of these exchange rates to emerging economies. A book which will delight readers with a background in such matters.

(NDu)

*** Legal aspects of the European System of Central Banks. Liber Amicorum Paolo Zamboni Garavelli. European Central Bank (29 Kaiserstrasse, Postfach 160319, 60066 Frankfurt am Main. Tel: [phone] - Fax: [phone] - Internet: http://www.ecb.int ). 2005, 414 pp. ISBN 92-9181-701-5.

This collection of essays was written to pay homage to late Paolo Zamboni Garavelli, a member and later the 'boss' of the legal department of the European Central Bank, after long years of service at the Bank of Italy. His colleagues and friends give their personal views, without their ideas coming under the auspices of the legal department they are or were members of, examining legal issues surrounding the European Central Bank System. The first part of the book looks at the relationship between the Central Banking System and the EU, with essays discussing issues like changes the Constitution would have introduced and the way the European Central Bank is supposed to act in the enlarged EU. Other parts of the book discuss the Eurosystem (from the angle of democratic legitimacy and banking supervision), monetary laws (like the legal status of the euro) and financial matters (like the impact of the savings directive on capital markets), along with the always highly controversial issue of the European Central Bank's independence.

(LD)