*** SAVATORE ENGEL-DI MAURO (Ed.): The European's Burden. Global Imperialism in EU Expansion. Peter Lang Publishing (29 Broadway, New York, NY-10006. Internet: http://www.peterlang.com ). 2006, 256 pp. ISBN 0-8204-7827-X.
This book arose from work by Salvatore Engel-Di Mauro and other members of a research group (including József Böröcz, Melinda Kovács and Attila Melegh) created following a seminar on "Eastern Enlargement of the European Union" at Rutgers University in the US in 2000. The book has received the backing of Wisconsin-Stevens University.
The first target of the book (and I choose the term advisedly) is EU enlargement. Many other books deal with this issue, of course, but few take Salvatore Engel-di Mauro's approach. Against the stream of most academic and political milieus, which tend to praise enlargement as a way of achieving long-term stability, peace, security and prosperity, the author sees EU enlargement, particularly the most recent round, as an imperialist policy on the part of the EU, which he feels is trying to expand its influence again in various parts of the world with the aim of accumulating capital. Geographer Salvatore Engel-Di Mauro probably tries to soften the impact of this bald expression, commenting, for example, that: 'The expansionist character of spreading 'democracy' and the 'free market', not to mention the shifting and accumulating 'aquis communautaire', might invoke negative connotations if equated with imperialism,' and encouraging readers not to be shocked when he compares the EU to an imperialist enterprise: 'Yet understanding the EU as an imperialistic venture should not be shocking to the reader, if it is understood that there exist many imperial forms, some of them more militaristic and extortionate than others.' He adds that the new form of imperialism he detects in the EU 'is much less brutal than Enlightenment antecedents.' Some analysts talk of "soft power" in connection with the European Union, but Salvatore Engel-di Mauro prefers to talk about "soft empire". And talking of "empire" logically also means talking about colonial power. As far the author is concerned, the European Union is implementing a neo-colonialist policy in its immediate neighbourhood and also in more distant necks of the wood, like EU Member States' former African colonies. In fact, it is not only the EU's expansionist ambitions that are queried in this book. Samir Amin sees the United States, the EU and, to a lesser extent, Japan, forming a triad personifying a kind of rehashed Monroe doctrine, while Jeff Sommers recognises the imperialist nature of the United States, but describes the US as having to compete with the EU, whose recent round of enlargement has enabled it to put itself in a better position to compete with the US, in his opinion. To demonstrate that it is not only the EU that comes under fire, I could mention Samir Amin again who, after recognising the benefits of integration and bringing peace to the EU, has a go at the US: 'The current project of US domination… will be fatally confronted by the growing resistance of the peoples in the Old World not ready to be subjected to it. The US will then have to behave like a 'Rogue State' par excellence, substituting international law with permanent war.'
The quotations above are from the introduction by Salvatore Engel-Di Mauro, who also wrote the concluding chapter. The dozen essays in the book are quite fiery, although often critical of the current of agreed representations. Nevertheless, as Salvatore Engel-di Mauro admits, the authors (half are from Eastern Europe, half from Western Europe, especially Germany) do not all agree with the editor's own conclusions, which only adds to the interest and matches the editor's desire to provide a variety of views. The essays can be divided into three main sections. The first studies relations and social struggle in the EU's domestic colonialism and its colonialism elsewhere. The second looks at the regional and global implications of EU enlargement, and the third is called 'The European Union's Imperial Form: the Multiple Processes of Imperial Incorporation'.
Countering a certain hearty angelism, this book has the merit of making one think. Despite some fiery ideas penned by Salvatore Engel-Di Mauro (which sometimes call for greater backing up by arguments), readers should not be deceived. This is not a conspiracy against the European Union but rather a denunciation of how the EU has been kidnapped and taken off track by a hard, dogmatic neo-liberal doctrine that is being allowed to act exactly as it pleases.
Frederik Ronse
*** THIERRY MENISSIER: L'idée d'empire dans la pensée politique, historique, juridique et philosophique. L'Harmattan (5-7 rue de l'Ecole-Polytechnique, F-75005 Paris. Tel: (33-1) 40467920 - Fax: 43258203 - E-mail: diffusion.harmattan@wanadoo.fr - Internet: http://www.librairieharmattan.com ). "La Librairie des Humanités" series. 2006, 279 pp, €25. ISBN 2-296-00843-7.
Echoing the previous book, this summary of the proceedings of a conference organised by the 'Philosophie, Langages et Cognition' research centre at Pierre Mendès France University - Grenoble 2 amounts, as Thierry Ménissier explains in the introduction, to a spectacular return of the notion of 'empire' in common parlance about international policy. However, as this senior lecturer in political philosophy immediately points out, agreeing on an idea of empire is almost as difficult as setting out a concept of empire. The authors of the book therefore set out to clarify the idea of 'empire' in essays raising questions about the political, historic, legal and philosophical dimensions of the idea of empire. They are at pains, as Thierry Ménissier explains, to separate off empire and imperialism methodologically. The book approaches the issue by taking the long view, looking at imperial situations from their own coherence. The authors always provide information about the concrete situation of a historical and political experience, along with an examination of the reasons set against the historical backdrop of the day to explain (and often justify) the experiences. The first part of the book looks at the invention of the idea of empire in Ancient Greek and Roman thought. This is followed by the idea of empire from a political and theological viewpoint, with essays on Dante's Monarchia ("Monarchia de Dante: de l'idée médiévale d'empire à la citoyenneté universelle"), the significance and cause of Marsilius of Padua's defence of empire, and Machiavelli and the succession of empires. The third part looks at empire in the light of modern imperialism (studying Venice, Volney, Kant and Nietzsche, along with the idea of empire under Fascist Italy). Considering future prospects for the idea of empire, the last part of the book includes an essay by Prof. Jean-Luc Chabot on the idea of empire in representations of the European project. He concludes (after making many other interesting suggestions) that the European Union would like to have an empire but the actual global US empire, associated with continued attachment in Europe to a nation-based sense of identity, has reduced the EU's empire aspirations to an empty shell. This encourages Massimo La Torre to urge the United States to imitate Rome by giving US citizenship to everyone who comes under its yoke…
(MT)
*** RENE SCHWOK: Suisse - Union européenne. L'adhésion impossible ? Presses polytechniques et universitaires romandes (EPFL - CM, CP 119, CH-1015 Lausanne. Tel: (41-2) 6932130 - Fax: 6934027 - E-mail: ppur@epfl.ch - Internet: http://www.ppur.org ). "Le Savoir suisse" series. 2006, 144 pp. ISBN 2-88074-687-6.
"The closer Switzerland gets to the EU through bilateral agreements, the more distant prospects of joining the EU seem to become." Thus ends this short book explaining in a captivating, user-friendly manner why a white spot is still hanging in there at the centre of political maps of Europe, and how Switzerland has nevertheless decided to build closer ties with the European Community over the years. Holder of the Jean Monnet Chair at Geneva University's European Institute, where he is a lecturer in the politics department, René Schwok starts by carrying out a brilliant, educational, previously unpublished summary of the main steps in this special, paradoxical, relationship hovering around the basic tensions of 'accession unlikely, marginalisation impossible'. The author then explains that the history of Switzerland's European policy will not halt with the second series of bilateral agreements because further progress can be expected in the area of the 'subtle treasures' hidden in the notions of framework-agreements, customs union and low-calorie accession. Finally and most importantly, Schwok explains why the Swiss still oppose joining the European Union, entering a dialectic surrounding identity issues, policy reservations (preserving neutrality, direct democracy and Swiss-style federalism) and economic doubts. A mine of information is to be found in these short pages!
(MT)
*** FRANZ KERNIC, GUNTHER HAUSER (Eds.): Handbuch zur europäischen Sicherheit. Peter Lang (1 Moostrasse, CH-2542 Pieterlen. Tel: (41-32) 3761717 - Fax: 3171727 - E-mail: info@peterlang.com - Internet: http://www.peterlang.de ). 2006, 311 pp. ISBN 3-631-55046-4.
This booklet gives a detailed description of changes in European security and defence structures since the end of the Cold War, covering political, social, economic, police and military aspects and citizens' rights. Questions studied include the theoretical underpinnings of EU security, the history and current situation facing the Common Foreign and Security Policy, the European Security and Defence Policy and interaction between the EU, the UN, OSCE and NATO. A very comprehensive tome.
(CDi)
*** NICOLA CASARINI: The evolution of the EU-China relationship: from constructive engagement to strategic partnership. European Union Institute for Security Studies (43 av. du Président Wilson, F-75775 Paris cedex 16. Tel: (33-1) 56891930 - Fax: (33-1) 56891931 - E-mail: info@iss.europa.eu - Internet: http://www.iss.europa.eu ). "Occasional Papers", No. 64. 2006, 46 pp. ISBN 92-9198-097-8.
China is casting ever longer shadows and its relationship with the EU is in a state of flux, making this occasional paper from the EU's Security Studies Institute highly timely. It starts by giving an overview of relations between China and the EU over the past thirty years, 'from secondary relationship to post-Cold War partnership'. Nicola Casarini then turns to the current economic dimension and the EU's new strategy for China. The next section of the book harks back to the first, studying the strategic and security dimension of EU-China relations, considering how China fits into the world order, EU-China cooperation under the Galileo project (providing China with an opportunity to gain greater access to leading Western technology) and the arms embargo on China following the Tiananmen Square massacre, which some EU Member States now want to see lifted, to Washington's dismay, in order to benefit from commercial opportunities available in the new strategic partner. The book ends with five recommendations.
(FRo)
*** DAVID LAWSON: Alerte infectieuse. Nouvelles menaces sur la stabilité internationale. L'Harmattan (5-7 rue de l'Ecole-Polytechnique, F-75005 Paris. Tel: (33-1) 40467920 - Fax: 43258203 - E-mail: diffusion.harmattan@wanadoo.fr - Internet: http://www.librairieharmattan.com ). "Questions contemporaines" series. 2006, 285 pp, €25-50. ISBN 2-296-01083-0.
The author manages the Southern African Unit of the United Nations population fund and has been involved in all the UN body's attempts to combat the scourge of AIDS. This essay results from years of research, analysis and reflection, amounting to an anguished and disturbing alarm call. David Lawson highlights the risks of fatal diseases like AIDS, SARS, bird flu, Ebola, tuberculosis and Chikungunya spreading and the growing threat of these diseases to humanity. The author says that rooting out these diseases is a social and health necessity and also a serious challenge to international relations, stability and global security since the very survival of the human race is at stake here …
(PBo)
*** JEAN-CLAUDE LEFORT: Les négociations commerciales Europe-Afrique, Caraïbes et Pacifique: tendre la main ou bien le poing ? Délégation pour l'Union européenne de l'Assemblée nationale (Boutique 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. 3251. 2006, 344 pp, €8. ISBN 2-11-121177-X.
This newsletter focusses on trade negotiations (extending a helping hand or a clenched fist?) between the EU and Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific, the EU's Economic Partnership Agreements with ACP states which, the author argues, have been dominated by the European Commission's sole concern to bring the EU's trade with these countries into line with WTO rules, with Member States silently acquiescing to this. The author suggests some more positive forms of cooperation.
(MT)
*** ALFRED ALMONT: L'Union européenne et la banane: un nouveau contrat pour faire face à la mondialisation. Délégation pour l'Union européenne de l'Assemblée nationale (see above). "Rapport d'information" series, No. 3443. 2006, 98 pp, €5. ISBN 2-11-121621-6.
The author of this newsletter suggests further improvements to what he describes as the European Commission's healthy reform plans for the EU's banana system, currently under fire from some Member States and subject to distorted competition from Latin America.
(PBo)