*** NICOLAS LEVRAT: L'Europe et ses collectivités territoriales. Réflexions sur l'organisation et l'exercice du pouvoir territorial dans un monde globalisé. Presses Interuniversitaires Européennes - Peter Lang (1 av. Maurice, B-1050 Brussels. E-mail: info@peterlang.com - Internet: http://www.peterlang.net ). "Cité européenne" series, No. 28. 2005, 304 pp. ISBN 90-5201-174-5.
Lecturer since 1997 on a permanent Jean Monnet course on local communities and Europe at the 'Université libre de Bruxelles' in Belgium and now also a professor at Geneva University where he teaches European and international law, Nicolas Levrat takes a detailed look in this book for expert readers on the interaction of a highly diversified public, namely local communities, with one another and with other institutions on the European stage like governments, national parliaments and European institutions. His aim is to work out how the EU operates and the type of 'original political system' it personifies, even aiming to understand a newly developing governance model which may well be exported and globalised in the future.
In the first part of the book, the author makes a very careful, detailed analysis of local communities in Europe, reporting on the impressive diversity of communities, reviewing attempts to categorise (like the 'comfortable NUTS solution' (NUTS was created by Eurostat: the Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics), and finally presenting and analysing the 'tricky question of the status of local communities in the EU's legal order'. The second part of the book is wholly devoted to the question of what role local communities should play in the European project, with the author considering their involvement in EU decision-making processes with or without institutional recognition, moving on to ask whether they are not also vectors of horizontal integration via cross-border cooperation.
His approach reaps plenty of useful lessons for people needing to master the dynamics operating between Europe and its terrain. A further point of interest of the book is the fact it is based on the author's conviction that the 'unidentified political object' of Europe (in Jacques Delors' terms) cannot be understood by studying research based on the logic of international relations or federalism. Because taking account of the involvement of local communities in decision-making processes, implementing and legitimising EU policies, cannot be achieved these days using ideas drawn from international relations, or from federalism for that matter. It is therefore a different explanatory theory that serves as the backdrop to Nicolas Levrat's ideas, namely multi-level governance or MLG. The federalist model is based on subsidiarity, involving a hierarchy of levels of power at the very least, but MLG is based on observation of the meshing of powers and how these powers are jointly exercised. Given that it is not possible to work using a clear, readable image of the role and actual contribution of local communities to the European project, the observer is confronted with a complex situation whose analysis the author describes as revealing 'a change in modes of organisation and the exercise of power in Europe.' As a lawyer, it is this change that Nicolas Levrat sets out to elucidate, with the ambition that this taking into account of local communities 'in the structure of conceptual analysis of the European project will not only have the impact of shedding light on the continued and growing importance of these levels of government in Europe,' but will also inform the reader about the true nature - which is more subtle than the use of other theoretical frameworks can manage to demonstrate - of the European integration process and the likely impact in terms of reorganising powers in Europe.
Pierre Bouvier
*** PAOLO GIUSTA: Ethics Matters. Practical Micro-Ethics for Civil Servants of the European Union. European Communities Official Publications Office (Luxembourg. Internet: http: //publications.europa.eu). 2006, 132 pp. ISBN 92-95009-28-2.
Ethics is assuming growing importance in all organisations, both private and public, and in the European institutions in particular. The EU Court of Auditors was one of the first EU institutions to take ethics seriously with the adoption of a code of conduct in July 2000 and organising courses in ethics for its staff in 2002. The courses were given by Paolo Giusta, at the time an official at the Court of Auditors who had followed a training course on ethics at the Gregorian University in Rome (he now works for the European Commission). This book arose from an academic dissertation and is one of the text books for the training course followed by new recruits at the Court of Auditors. The author restricts his gaze to behaviour and moral decisions by individuals (known as micro-ethics) without considering the moral content of the policies implemented (macro-ethics).
In the first part of the book, the author analyses the development of a 'moral conscience' in European public service over the past decade, examining the various facets that have emerged. The second chapter defines the concept of ethics and tries to distinguish between ethics and the law on the one hand, and ethics and deontology on the other. Paolo Giusta also explores different ethical systems in order to establish a reference point and query the need for such systems. The first part of the third chapter analyses the character of Jean Monnet and the 'founding fathers' of Europe, trying to identify the moral qualities that enabled them to consider a solution to bring unity among interests which had previously led to war. The second part outlines the ideals forming the basis of the European project, like peace, prosperity and supra-nationalism, before attempting to translate them into values applicable to the European Union in the form it takes today. The fourth chapter analyses a series of values which EU rules and measures aspire to translate into a type of decision-making guide. The last chapter suggests practical ways of assessing the ethics of various situations.
(NDu)
*** IRINA MICHALOWITZ: Assessing Conditions for Influence of Interest Groups in the EU. Institut für Höhere Studien - Institute for Advanced Studies (56 Stumpergasse, A-1060 Vienna, Austria. Tel: (43-1) 59991-0 - Fax: 59991-555 - Internet: http://www.ihs.ac.at ). "Reihe Politikwissenschaft - Political Science Series", No. 106. 2005, 28 pp, €6 (private individuals), €20 (institutions).
In this publication, a researcher based in Vienna, Irina Michalowitz, explores the nature of lobby group influence on European decision-makers. Interest groups are a dilemma for theoreticians of democracy because they are an assembly of interests and therefore wield a certain power and have a certain representative character. Some theoreticians go further, believing the action of pressure groups to be a form of commitment by civil society to help tackle the democratic deficit in the European Union. On the other hand, one of the bases of democracy is that decision-making powers should be in the hands of citizens. But since interest groups are not elected by citizens, they cannot be seen as satisfactory elements of democracy. Against this backdrop, Irina Michalowitz assesses the scope and nature of the influence wielded by interest groups at EU level in order to measure their impact on the democratic system. After examining the question of interest groups' democratic legitimacy, she explains how their influence and modus operandi can be discerned. In the third part of the book, she outlines four empirical studies in the field of telecommunications and transport and then assesses the apparent influence of lobbyists in each case. The last part of the book interprets the evidence of influence in each of the four case studies and discusses their democratic legitimacy.
(NDu)
*** Contribution du Conseil Economique et Social au Livre blanc sur une politique de communication européenne. Les Editions des Journaux officiels (26 rue Desaix, F-75727 Paris cedex 15. Tel: (33-1) 40587979 - Fax: 45791784 - E-mail: info@journal-officiel.gouv.fr - Internet: http://www.journal-officiel.gouv.fr ). "Avis et Rapports du Conseil Economique et Social" series. 2006, 63 pp, €6. ISBN 2-11-120708-X.
'Better communication will not suffice to fill the gap that has opened in recent years between European citizens and so many citizens disappointed with the clash between speeches and the perception they have of changes on which they cannot have any influence, and also the lack of visibility of the European project.' Thus opens the highly pertinent conclusions of the French Economic and Social Committee's analysis of the European Commission's White Paper on European Communications Policy. This publication includes a number of interesting proposals in this connection.
(PBo)
*** HUBERT HAENEL (Ed.): National Parliaments, a Bulwark for Europe. Fondation Robert Schuman (29 bd. Raspail, F-75007 Paris. Tel: (33-1) 53638300 - Fax: 53638301 - E-mail: info@robert-schuman.eu - Internet: http://www.robert-schuman.eu ). "Notes de la Fondation Robert Schuman" series. 2006, 84 pp, €10.
This is an English translation of the book "Les parlements nationaux, un appui pour l'Europe", by the French Senator for the Upper Rhine region, Hubert Haenel, who is also President of the French Senate's Delegation for the European Union. He starts by painting a broad picture of the EU and explaining its special democratic functioning, paying particular attention to the European Parliament. He shows how the idea of getting national parliaments more involved in the functioning of the EU has been growing in recent years. This former member of the Convention goes on to describe national parliaments' current involvement in the life of the EU, still embryonic at the moment, but part of the answer to the growing demand for legitimisation. The author goes beyond simply describing the situation and shedding light on areas where national parliaments can get more involved because in the second half of the book he outlines probable developments in the situation and suggests ways of making progress. Readers should be aware that as far as Hubert Haenel is concerned, wanting to get national parliaments more involved does not mean wanting to slow down European unification but is on the contrary a desire to give it the extra legitimacy it needs to become more profound.
(FRo)
*** JOANNA DLUGOSZ, MARTIN WITKOWSKI (Eds.): Perspektiven für Europa - eine neue Öffnung ? / Perspectives of Europe - The New Opening? Peter Lang (1 Moosstrasse, Postfach 350, CH-2542 Pieterlen. Tel: (41-32) 3761717 - Fax: 3761727 - E-mail: info@peterlang.com - Internet: http://www.peterlang.de ). 2006, 293 pp. ISBN 3-631-54674-2.
The essays in this book try to explain some of the fundamental questions connected with the European integration process and shed light on various possible perspectives for cooperation at EU level. The authors take a detailed look at subjects like the future of political cooperation, the development of EU rules, the economic integration of Europe, combating poverty in the EU, the free circulation of individuals and the establishment of regional initiatives. Desiring to contribute to the drafting of common European perspectives for all EU Member States, the authors also verify to what extent the overall positive assessment of EU enlargement corresponds to political, legal, economic and social reality. The essays are written in either English or German, giving a the book a European feel but with the disadvantage that only a limited number of people who understand both English and German can real the entire book…
(CDi)
*** LEX HEERMA VAN VOSS, PATRICK PASTURE, JAN DE MAEYER (Eds.): Between Cross and Class. Comparative Histories of Christian Labour in EUROPE 1840-2000. Peter Lang AG (32 Hochfeldstrasse, Postfach 746, CH-3000 Bern 9. E-mail: info@peterlang.com - Internet: http://www.peterlang.com ). "International and Comparative Social History" series. 2005, 399 pp. ISBN 3-03910-044-0.
In the introduction, historian Patrick Pasture stresses the desire of the authors of this book to move away from the common idea in Continental Europe, which is actually pure prejudice, that the working class tended to be foreign to Christianity and that Christian churches were objective allies of the possessing classes and turned their back on workers. The authors came together as part of joint work by the Amsterdam-based International Institute of Social History (IISG) and the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium (more specifically its Centre for documentation of research on religion, culture and society), producing a thematic and transnational or comparative synthesis of the generally little-known role of Christian worker organisations in the demand for social rights from 1840 to 2000, mostly in Western Europe. In addition, as Patrick Pasture puts it, the question of Christian worker movements cannot be separated from the wider question of the relation between the working class and religion, particularly Christian churches. The dozen articles in the book cover areas like how these movements were set up, their relationship with the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, their conflicts with the Socialists and their role in establishing social security.
(FRo)