*** FREDERIC ESPOSITO: Vers un nouveau pouvoir citoyen ? Des référendums nationaux au référendum européen. Academia Bruylant (29 Grand'Place, B-1348 Louvain-la-Neuve. Tel: (32-10) 452395 - Fax: 454480 - E-mail: academia.bruylant@skynet.be - Internet: http://www.academia-bruylant.be ). "Publications de l'Institut européen de l'Université de Genève" series, No. 2. 2007, 371 pp, €44. ISBN 2-87209-853-8.
Now that there's no going back under the leadership of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, fine-tuning is required (in other words, the treaty has to be finalised at an Intergovernmental Conference) and it then has to be sold by submitting it for approval by the twenty-seven EU member states. Much work remains to be done, basically, before the final steps are made, preferably before the next European elections. Once again, the path may prove to be an uphill battle, especially because new referendums of the people are written in the stars and recent experience has demonstrated that this can sometimes cause huge problems.
This book by Frédéric Esposito gets to the heart of the new matter in the European project that is ever more clearly affecting its evolution, namely the rising power of direct democracy, which is profoundly altering the logic whereby the political elite shaped Europe in the past - it also raises a number of vital questions for the future of the European Union. How can the majority logic of national voting be reconciled with the demand of unanimous voting among countries for each new treaty? Is the national framework still adequate for legitimising each step of the process of building Europe? Would it be better to hold a European-wide referendum instead of referendums in some member states - which mean that some European citizens at the moment are more equal than others, namely more equal than the ones who have not been consulted? The first of the author's achievements is that his research, combining politics and law, provides a map of the ever more frequent use of direct democracy as a way of legitimising the European integration process. In the first part of the book, this senior lecturer at Geneva University (whose work, unsurprisingly, focuses on direct democracy and the EU's governance problems) starts by setting out the theoretical background to the concept of democracy in order to situate the EU's democratisation process, and explains how the EU still suffers from a problem of social legitimacy referring back to democratic deficits. In the second part of the book there is a systematic analysis of 666 occasions when votes were held in 29 European countries from 1945 to 2005, where he makes an in-depth assessment of the potential of referendums and the strengths and weaknesses of referendums. The fact that more frequent use is being made of referendums is in his view the expression of a need to reconsider the national publications areas as a framework for legitimising Community action. He argues for a referendum solution to be introduced for the whole of the European Union.
'I believe myself that the organisation of Europe should come from Europe itself. I believe that a mass referendum of all free Europeans should be the start of Europe'. This first quotation about citizen involvement on a greater scale than that of national areas goes back to 1949 and comes from a speech by General de Gaulle. This statement of intention was not put into practice but since then, it has taken a variety of forms, with 49 proposals listed by the author. Most of the ever more frequent suggestions have been made by the European Parliament and academia. After analysing them in terms of their constitutional scope and the contribution of the European Parliament, Frédéric Esposito makes two new suggestions himself, namely a European constitutional referendum and a European sovereignty referendum on the issue of public interest with the aim of teaching the European political elite about the view of European citizens. He also explains in detail how such referendums could be organised and validated, exploring ways of using 'double majority' voting of countries and populations. His ideas will definitely provide food for thought for political leaders, political analysts and lawyers. But surely they should first of all consider, before anything else, this striking and potentially enlivening conclusion from the author: "(…) referendums appear to be an instrument that could enable the European Union to play its democratic role more clearly. And therefore to get itself better understood and better understand European citizens. European referendums will therefore have the vocation of revitalising national democracies and, in the long term, favouring the construction of European democracy". The answer is obvious if one really wants both a Europe of countries and a Europe of citizens.
Michel Theys
*** OLIVIER COSTA, PAUL MAGNETTE: How the EU Could Overcome the Current Constitutional Crisis. Garnet (56 rue Jacob, F-75006 Paris. Tel: (33-1) 58717000 - Fax: 58717091 - Internet: http://www.garnet-eu.org ). "Garnet Policy Brief", No. 4. 2007, 8 pp.
The crisis experienced by the European Union since the spring of 2005 has been described by Jacques Delors as the most serious crisis in the history of European integration. As the authors explain, the European project gives rise to great mistrust from public opinion and massive disengagement by leaders. In this small pamphlet published by the 'Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches internationales' for the Garnet network of academic excellence (developed under the EU's fifth framework programme for R&D), Olivier Costa and Paul Magnette briefly set out and comment upon three possible scenarios - an ambitiously federalist approach supported in some circles but unlikely in their view; a range of gradualist scenarios retaining some elements of the constitutional treaty without changing the current intergovernmentalism; and the 'functionalist' approach defended by Nicolas Sarkozy.
(FRo)
*** European Union: The Next Fifty Years. 50+ Top Thinkers Set Out their Ideas for Europe. Financial Times Business (Number One Southwark Bridge, London SE19HL, UK. Tel: (44-207) 8733000 - Internet: http://www.ftbusiness.com/eu50 ). 2007, 168 pp.
"Financial Times Business" has splashed out on a special publication to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the Treaty of Rome. Alongside two introductory pages by Angela Merkel and José Manuel Barroso, this book is by fifty figureheads from the European institutions (like EP President Hans-Gert Pöttering and Commissioner Danuta Hübner) and national leaders like Carl Bildt, Guy Verhofstadt and Nicolas Sarkozy) and figures from academia, associations and journalism. This handful of names only gives a very slight idea of the full flavour of different nationalities and backgrounds of the writers. The FT asked them to project themselves fifty years into the future and explain how they think the European Union might be when it is a hundred years old. This useful exercise in politics-fiction has the aim of gathering a range of opinions, some enthusiastic and some rather scathing, on current and future changes to the EU, the challenges and what should be done. Opinions and priorities vary, of course, but the essays are divided more and less according to the main topic discussed. The publication also includes a schedule of European events of the year and a dozen articles sponsored by business and bodies like the European Environment Agency.
(FRo)
*** JEAN-PAUL BLED, ALAIN BOURNAZEL, PAUL-MARIE COUTEAUX: Sortir de l'Union européenne. Manifeste. Office d'Edition Impression Librairie François-Xavier de Guibert (3 rue Jean-François Gerbillon, F-75006 Paris. Internet: http://www.fxdeguibert.com ). "Combats pour la liberté de l'esprit" series. 2005, 663 pp, €96. ISBN 2-86600-999-1.
This book tells the story of a supranationalist plot which had the effect of taming and putting down France. It slams a 'European dream that was in reality an American dream - particularly in the mind of its founders, the Franco-American Monnet, boss of several banks on the other side of the Atlantic, the tri-national Schuman and other Altanticists like Spaak and de Gasperi', to quote the preface by separatist MEP Paul-Marie Coûteaux. Readers will already have grasped that there is much mixing of information and disinformation in the book, which calls on behalf of the 'Rassemblement pour l'Indépendance et la Souveraineté de la France' (a party saying it has Gaullist inspiration) on the French authorities to slam the European treaties in order to be able to go on to build a 'reasonable Europe', in other words a Europe of 'free cooperation' which would allow France to pick itself up again, having become fully sovereign and freeing the French from the 'chains of the EU'. No comment.
(PBo)
*** CHRISTOPHE DEGRYSE: Dictionnaire de l'Union européenne. De Boeck & Larcier (39 rue des Minimes, B-1000 Brussels. Tel: (32-10) 482500 - Fax: 482519 - E-mail: commande@deboeckservices.com - Internet: http://www.deboeck.com ). 2007, 1,066 pp, €75. ISBN 2-80415286-4.
There are already plenty of dictionaries on the European Union but this one does not simply list words and their definitions in alphabetical order but is also, in the words of Christophe Degryse, "a coherent body which readers will easily be able to find their way around". The book is already in its third edition, updated and expanded to cover a thousand or so terms, most of whose definitions are based on EU law. They can be classified in five categories - treaties, institutions, EU policies, EU programmes and EU jargon (comitology, Lisbon Strategy, etc). Each entry is explored in line with its intrinsic interest and complexity. 'Europartnership' is explained in a dozen lines, for example, but the term 'competition policy' takes up nearly seven pages. A typical entry has an introductory heading followed by a definition and possibly an explanatory section providing further information. Each refers readers to related entries. 'Sprint' refers you to the EU's Framework Programme for R&D, for example. There is a useful, detailed chronology of the European project in the widest sense (some twenty or so pages) in an annex. There is a general index to help readers find their way around the book, along with a thematic index (useful when one doesn't know the exact word but knows the general area). 'Consumers, protection' leads one to entries like "Rapex", "Solvit" and "Fin-Net" which one might not otherwise have thought of looking up. The book, as Paul Collowald explains in the preface, is a toolkit for citizens wanting to learn, aware that they have rights to information but also the duty to combat ignorance and indifference - democracy's two enemies.
(FRo)
*** STEPHANE DESSELAS: Un lobbying professionnel à visage découvert. Enquête sur l'influence des Français à Bruxelles. Éditions du Palio (Internet: http://www.editionsdupalio.com ). 2007, 141 pp, €16. ISBN 978-2-35449-002-7
Stéphane Desselas, a lawyer by training and senior lecturer in politics in Paris, has headed a European lobby group in Brussels for fifteen years and is an independent member of the Public Relations Global Network. He is therefore one of the leading French representatives of the lobbying profession in Brussels and in a good position to talk about the job. To tell the truth, most important decisions having a direct impact on business are taken in Brussels, not necessarily in Paris any more, explains MEP Françoise Grossetête in the foreword, providing a good illustration of the importance of representing interests (lobbying) at the European institutions. While lobbying is still shrouded in mystery in the minds of many, it has long given rise to questioning and even suspicion, particularly in France. Some lobbyists still feel the need to explain their activities to their head office and even to justify their existence, explains Stéphane Desselas. He therefore explains the role of French lobbyists in Brussels (and hence the work of lobbyists in general), reviewing their work with a fine toothcomb and making suggestions about how to fill the gaps he identifies. To this end, the author uses a series of interviews with various parties to study the activities of French lobbyists on three complex issues which generate many varying opinions, namely the rehash of the Television Without Frontiers Directive, the directive on liberalising services; and REACH (the Chemicals Directive). This case study takes up the first section of the book and invalidates the hypothesis that there are national differences in lobbying, differences which reputedly set French lobbyists (seen as ineffective) at a disadvantage. Above all, it enables Stéphane Desselas to identify (as a good professional should, one might be tempted to say) strengths and weaknesses and to make recommendations on how to improve the impact of French lobbying which is still sometimes over-academic or unprofessional, but which can keep its head up high.
(FRo)
*** Documents. Revue du dialogue franco-allemand. Bureau International de Liaison et de Documentation (50 rue de Laborde, F-75008 Paris. Tel: (33-1) 43879040 - Fax: 42935094 - E-mail: revue@bild-documents.org - Internet: http://www.revuedocuments.com ). 2007, No. 2, 80 pp, €7-80. Annual subscription €39.
As ever, this review of Franco-German dialogue covers a wide variety of topics often moving beyond the subject of connections between the two countries and taking on a real European dimension. This issue has a special dossier on "L'Europe en mouvement", on the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Rome. Stéphanie Bauer, for example, examines the idea of civil society, the concept of European peoples and a European people and the institutional level in the integration process.
(FRo)