*** JEAN-CLAUDE PIRIS: The Constitution for Europe. A Legal Analysis. Cambridge University Press (The Edinburgh Building, Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge CB2 2RU, UK. Tel: (44-01223) 312393 - fax: 315052 - Internet: http://www.cambridge.org ). "Cambridge Studies in European Law and Policy" series. 2006, 267 pp, £ 22.99. ISBN 0-521-68218-5.
There are very probably few readers at Agence Europe who do not know who Jean-Claude Piris is. This French national is currently Director General at the Legal Service of the Secretariat General at the Council of the Union. In this role he is one of the most listened to and respected people in the higher echelons of the Brussels-European microcosm, but also in government milieus throughout Community Europe. Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, former British permanent representative to the Union, recalled that John Major had called on him to tackle, during the Edinburgh European Council, the Irish block on the Treaty of Maastricht, which he did successfully, as we know. Since then, this member of the French State Council has never ceased to frequent the inner sanctums, on a more or less regular basis, designing the different evolutions in the Constitutional character of the Union. He was also the legal adviser to the Inter-governmental Conferences, which produced the Treaties of Maastricht, Amsterdam and Nice, before adding to this eminent function, the responsibility of the secretariat of which, following the preparatory work of the Convention, produced the Constitutional Treaty. Although “the legal analysis” offered in this book is from one of the best armed people to seek out the forces of weakness, shortcomings, as well as the potentialities, he can also be found in the negotiations, sleeves rolled up his arms and up to his shoulders in politico-institutional affairs. What is the (very long) process that led to the Constitution? What are the changes that this brought to the structures and procedures, as well as to the institutions? How can the recognised need for strengthening the democratic character of the Union and make it work more flexibly be met? What changes would the Constitution bring to the substance regarding human rights and fundamental freedoms or reinforcing the existing competencies of the Union? Here are a few questions that, by providing structure to the book, enable the author to subtly outline the constitutional achievement in accessible terms to the greatest number of people, by illustrating its provisions and by analysing them in a perspective of continuity and/or innovation. This stance by a committed and passionate actor! He adopted the posture of a neutral observer and even, on some occasions, a critical one, turns out to be indispensable for someone who wants to be able to discuss the content of the Constitution by drawing on all the facts!
Nevertheless, Jean-Claude Piris is not only an eminent legal expert. The career of this former diplomat also attests, in a spectacular way, to his political sensibility in the highest and most noble sense of the term. This explains why in the opening of the book he holds forth on the question of whether after the French and Dutch “no” votes, the Constitution for Europe is “dead and buried” which much of the British press attempted to deduce very quickly. Remarking that the ratification process was not closed, he responds, not without humour, in a footnote, pointing out that the American writer Mark Twain, at the time of the publication of an obituary being written about him while he was still alive, he is reported to have cabled the press to say that reports of his death had been greatly exaggerated. After having displayed in a very subtle and reasoned way why the French and Dutch “no” vote did not fatally mark a shift to defiance of European integration or even less so, to a refusal by two founding countries to pursue it, he explains that the vote was something that had more to do with other problems, which he is seeking to identify and which are aptly described in a summary by Professor Joseph H. Weiler, “Whatever its ultimate political destiny, the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe is destined to remain a fundamental text”. To conclude, this enlightening opinion: the idea of starting from the substance of the Constitution in view of negotiating a new “simplified and reduced” Treaty is a seductive one but politically difficult to implement. Why? Mainly because it should remain “unchanged” to avoid a new exercise of ratification in countries that have already approved the Constitution. However, this legal expert immediately explains, once again in a footnote, that, “unchanged does not necessarily mean 'without' any addition'. It is inconceivable that 'something' might be added to the text of the treaty itself. It might be either in a non-legal form, which does not need to be ratified (e.g. a 'Solemn Declaration'), or in a legal form which would not necessitate a new ratification of the Constitutional Treaty itself in the Member States which have already done so, but which might be ratified separately through a lighter procedure”. Isn't this a possibility that increasing numbers of people are thinking about?
Michel Theys
*** DAVID SPENCE (Editor): The European Commission. John Harper Publishing (27 Palace Gates Road, London N22 7BW, UK. Internet: http://www.johnharperpublishing.co.uk ). 2006, 592 pp. ISBN 0-9543811-8-1.
A political advisor for the Commission delegation to international organisations in Geneva, David Spence presents the third, completely revised and significantly larger edition of this authoritative guide. The book aims to explain in a clear and precise way how each aspect of the apparently labyrinthine Commission works and is organised. A team of senior officials and experts from academia seek to demonstrate in nine chapters, the mechanisms of this institution, which is at the centre of the Community process. Subjects include the role of the president, interaction between the Commission and the Council, Commission and Parliament, Commission and agencies or the role of the Commission in external relations or in European cooperation policy - all treated in a way that provides as reliable information as possible for the reader. Essential reading for everyone who is not working in the inner sanctum to better understand how his major institution works and is structured.
(NDu)
*** AMIE KREPPEL, GAYE GUNGOR: The Institutional Integration of an Expanded EU. Or How 'New' European Actors Fit into 'Old' European Institutions. Institut für Höhere Studien (56 Stumpergasse, A-1060 Vienna. Tel: (43-1) 59991-0 - fax: 59991-555 - Internet: http://www.ihs.ac.at ). "Reihe Politikwissenschaft - Political Science" series, No. 108. 2006, 27 pp., €6.
The aim in this issue is to establish how the political parties in the new Member States (by focusing on those who came out of the former Communist block) integrate into the functioning of the European Parliament (EP) and to a lesser extent, into the framework of the European parties. This is, as the authors underline at the outset, “not only increases the ideological diversity at the EP but can also introduce (and this is perhaps more important) a new framework of organisation and behavioural standards there that reflect the customs of the partisans and legislatures of their countries". Amie Kreppel and Gaye Gungor set out to study the two situations, that of the European Parliament and its parties and that of their counterparts from the new Member States. The book initially therefore examines the “political partisans” and their control at the European Parliament, as well as the organisation and the structure of the latter, before focusing on the parties and parliaments of the countries from the former Communist block. Part of the book also centres on points of cooperation or potential conflict and the conclusion. According to the authors the national parliaments from the new members are general stronger than those in the older Member States due to weakness of the political parties in the old Communist block. This enlargement is not expected to pose any major problems of integration for the European Parliament and will " probably be even less problematic than other former enlargements ".
(FRo)
*** RENÉ ANDRÉ: Une stratégie renforcée pour l'élargissement. Délégation pour l'Union européenne de l'Assemblée nationale (4 rue Aristide Briand, F-75007 Paris. Tel: (33-1) 40636121 - Internet http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr ). "Rapport d'information" series, No. 3133. 2006, 57 pp., €. 3.50 ISBN 2-1111-9836-6.
The enlargement of the Union continues to take pride of place in many discussions. It has fuelled debates in European circles and been the subject of much concern among the European public, which, to use the words of French MP René André -, "rightly or wrongly has the impressions that this fifth enlargement was trying to introduce, for the first time, a kind of competition between Member States that would break the balance that has hitherto existed between competition and solidarity at the Union ".
However, as the French National Assembly's Delegation for the European Union explains, the most recent round of enlargement, soon to be extended with the arrival of Bulgaria and Romania, generally worked very smoothly and there was nothing to be ashamed of. The author discusses the beefing up of the strategy for the new candidate countries and future candidate countries noting that it is no longer enough to be 'almost perfect' and countries had to meet the criteria perfectly and take account of the EU's absorption capacity. As is customary with these newsletters, the succinct final conclusions give a diagnostic view of French parliamentary opinion.
(FRo)
*** DANNY WILDEMEERSCH, VEERLE STROOBANTS, MICHAL BRON JR. (Eds.): Active Citizenship and Multiple Identities in Europe. A Learning Outlook. Peter Lang (1 Moosstrasse, CH-2542 Pieterlen. Tel: (41-32) 3761717 - Fax: 3761727 - e-mail: info@peterlang.com - Internet: http://www.peterlang.de ). "European Studies in Lifelong Learning and Adult Learning Research" series, No. 1. 2005, 338 pp. ISBN 3-631-54202-X.
European Library has recently reviewed several books on education in general and further education more specifically. This collection of essays comes into this category. It attempts to define what the role of education in the training of active citizens and identities in Europe is and could be. To paraphrase Tom Steele and Richard Taylor's comments about Mannheim's theories, education and the education of mature citizens in particular might be a credible starting point for dealing with questions of 'spiritual' unity or the 'feeling' of human community needed to give an appropriate answer to concerns about equality and social justice. To describe the background, the book starts with a rather audacious and daring article by sociologist Zygmunt Bauman entitled "An adventure called Europe", in which he speaks of Europe motivated by a civilisation of transgressing frontiers of all types, which has the Promethean task of turning the world into a subject of critical questioning and creative action. He then asks whether the this European adventure - no longer able to be poured out into a world once believed to have been emptied of its flow of human rubbish - is coming to an end. He maliciously comments that towards the end of the twentieth century, Europe's mission has been accomplished. Its mission proved to be the global transmission of a compulsive, obsessive and dominating need to arrange and rearrange (codeword modernization) and the irresistible pressure to degrade and lower modes of living and subsistence in the past and present by depriving them of survival value and their ability to improve living conditions (codeword economic progress), in other words the two specialities of the European firm. In terms of the current questioning of freedom and democracy and the counter-examples quoted by those defending this argument the strongest, Bauman argues that one could understand 'egotism and every man for himself and the devil take the rest' as freedom and 'the law of the jungle' for democracy. In a less provocative spirit the other two dozen essays suggest other interesting areas of reflection on the correlation between citizenship, identity and education.
(FRo)
*** GERHARD BAUMGARTNER: Ausgliederung und öffentlicher Dienst. Springer-Verlag (Vienna - Internet: http://www.springer.at ). "Forschungen aus Staat und Recht" series, No. 149. 2006, 568 pp.
ISBN 3-211-31115-7.
This study examines the consequences of outsourcing various public services, publishing most of the author's 2004 doctoral thesis for Salzburg University which has been substantially revised and updated. Following his experience at the constitutional department of the Austrian federal chancellorship, Dr. Baumgartner wanted to fill a gap in the literature on the impact of such outsourcing, particularly for staff transferred from public service to regional authorities or even to the private sector. The book starts with analysis of the legal framework, and the author then examines the application of EU law, particularly in Austria. The implications for EU convergence policy, subsidiarity and competition and the difference between 'outsourcing' and 'privatisation' are then explained. In the third part of the book, Gerhard Baumgartner pays particular attention to staff transferred from one system to another, studying their rights and vulnerabilities, before outlining a series of reforms to remedy inconsistencies and other weaknesses. The book is aimed at legal experts and law students, particularly those with a special interest in tension between the Austrian Constitutional Court and EU labour law and the role of the state.
(CDi)