*** ANDERS ÅSLUND, MAREK DÀBROWSKI (Eds.): Europe After Enlargement. Cambridge University Press (The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK. Tel: (44-1223) 312393 - Fax: 315052 - 32 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10013-2473, USA. Internet: http://www.cambridge.org ). 2007, 239 pp. ISBN 978-0-521-87286-7.
This book looks at the future of the European Union, focussing on what the authors see as the five areas facing the greatest challenges in the year to come, "namely, the new European Constitution, European finances and the Euro, the need to boost economic growth, competition in both new member states and countries further to the east, and the goal of forming a cooperative and productive relationship with countries on the European periphery".
The European Union has been gaining weight on the international stage due to the most recent round of enlargement, but problems still remain or are even growing in scale. The dozen authors covering the five main topics seem to generally share a degree of scepticism about the outcome of some of the EU's objectives swelling the already wide ranks of critics, for example, of the Lisbon Strategy who doubt that the Lisbon objectives, even the revised Lisbon objectives, can actually be achieved. The title of the very first essay speaks volumes: "Has Europe Lost its Heart?" While recognising that "twenty-five countries do not cooperate as six used to," economist Charles Wyplosz is more confident about the future than the title might suggest because he does not believe that the massive round of enlargement in recent years will necessarily be to the detriment of integration, believing that integration and enlargement can complement each other as long as the EU knows how to adjust its institutions and functioning accordingly. In this connection, he comments that "the rising 'influence of the European Parliament comes more at the expense of the Commission than at the expense of national governments. Overall, this evolution is likely to slow down integration since the Commission is its main advocate". He therefore believes that the European Parliament's position should be shored up against national governments, as foreseen in the constitutional treaty, or, alternatively, the Commission's legitimacy should be boosted.
The first two chapters deal the most with institutional issues in general, with the remainder focusing on economic considerations. Daniel Gros of CEPS points out that although the EU set itself grand objectives for the first decade of the twenty-first century, "in fact, future economic historians may well conclude that this decade confirmed the decline of Europe", explaining that: "With the rise of Asian countries in recent years, Europe will probably end the decade as a shrinking political and economic power, continuing the trend that began with World War I". He feels that some steps have been made in the right direction but not enough progress has been made, leading electorates to increasingly turn to backward protectionist measures and "politicians eager to disguise their own failings are catering to these sentiments by questioning the rationale of an open, market-oriented economy". This trend among the electorate is no doubt not to the liking of the other authors either given that the book is clearly characterised by a liberal or neo-liberal turning. The book's field of study focusses on the European Union's 'raw' economic performance and ways of improving it, leading to little in the way of socio-economic considerations in the wider sense, concentrating instead on macro-economic, financial reflection on the legal framework of trading activities. Hence while Patrick Lenain of the OECD looks at employment indicators in a chapter entitled "Is Europe Reforming?", former Russian government official Yegor T. Gaidar puts Poland forward as the best example among the new member states of a country which opted for a "shock therap," described on the basis of growth in GDP as the most successful approach to reforms, but failing to mention the startling levels of unemployment in Poland.
The book concludes by making an in-depth assessment of the economic trump cards up the EU's sleeve and makes suggestions about how to play them. It devotes much space to the transition mechanisms for the member states which used to belong to the Soviet bloc to help them turn into market economies, also looking at economic integration in the wider neighbourhood, particularly with countries to the East in the Euro-Asian area. Readers would not guess from the title, but the book's main subject matter is economic Europe after enlargement, with a vision of reality that will be challenged by some parties and supported by others. As Anders Åslund concludes in a chapter where he compares the Russian oligarchy with the American oligarchy at the turn of the last century (in which he suggests settling disputes about purchase of means of production at low prices by the Russians by a one-off payment in return for the strengthening of property rights) that "In the end, no political solution is likely to hold if it is not supported by a strong and broad ideological commitment. If people are not convinced that they need capitalism for their own good, they are not likely to accept the perseverance of the super-rich".
Frederik Ronse
*** FRITZ BREUSS: A prototype model of EU's 2007 enlargement. Europainstitut Wirtschafts Universität Wien (39-45 Althanstrasse, 1090 Vienna. Tel: (43/1) 313364135 - Fax: 31336758 - E-mail: europafragen@wu-wien.ac.at - Internet: http: //fgr.wu-wien.ac.at/institut/ef/home01de). "EI Working Papers", No. 76. 2007, 42 pp, €7-20.
This new working paper from Vienna University's European Institute provides a macroeconomic model to assess the impact of enlargement on Bulgaria and Romania. Researcher Fritz Breuss looks at the direct impact of integration for the fifteen countries which were members of the European Union before the 2004 round of enlargement. He also assesses the impact of enlargement on the ten new countries which joined the club in May 2004. On the basis of several economic simulations, the author reaches the conclusion that the benefits for old member states will be qualitatively different from the benefits they experienced at the time of the 'big bang' enlargement. He also argues that the benefits to Bulgaria and Romania in the future will be greater than those gained by the ten member states which joined in May 2004. Within the EU, it is Austria which should benefit the most from enlargement to Romania and Bulgaria because of its extensive trade relations with the two countries. (NDu)
*** MICHEL DÉFOSSEZ, JULIETTE SÉNÉCHAL, BERNARD TILLEMAN, ALAIN VERBEKE (Eds.): Journée franco-belge sur les opérations transfrontalières de construction. Regards sur la liberté de prestation de services. De Boeck & Larcier (39 rue des Minimes, B-1000 Brussels. Tel: (32-10) 482500 - Fax: 482519 - E-mail: commande@deboeckservices.com - Internet: http://www.larcier.com ). "Contrats & Patrimoine" series, No. 5. 2007, 276 pp. ISBN 978-2-8044-2616-3.
The directive on liberalising services led to a degree of agitation or even turmoil. It will in fact lead to great changes in terms of cross-border supplies of services. The building industry, a juggernaut of cross-border services in the turnover and share of European GNP (it accounts for nearly 10% of EU GNP), is no exception. This was the subject of a conference organised by Valenciennes and Hainaut Cambresis University in France on 1 December 2006, the proceedings of which are published in this book. It looks at entrepreneurs, 'constructors' in the book's terminology, who go to work on a site on the other side of the Quiévrain, comparing and contrasting French and Belgian legislation and the impact of EU legislation on French and Belgian legislation. This is far from a futile question because contrary to what one might believe, the French and Belgian legal systems, although both are descended from Napoleonic Law, have gone their separate ways over time. Belgian law governing construction has remained within the remit of civil law and has remained quite liberal, whereas in France, it developed into more differentiated and more interventionist property law. This leads Prof. Hughes Périnet-Marquet of Panthéon-Assas University to comment that as far as constructors of either of these countries are concerned, crossing the border means a real change of legal climate. The book does not have the objective, however, of debating the substance and form of the two legal systems, but rather to focus on the more dynamic central issue of cross-border operations in general, and therefore brings in a third element, EU legislation. Moreover, Hughes Périnet-Marquet remarks that in terms of Community law, the less prolific Belgian legal system is able to adapt and bend far more easily to the storm of free market ideas that will probably shake European legal systems if the EU continues its forward march. This book is clearly a useful source of tangible information about the legal framework of cross-border building projects between France and Belgium, but above all it provides an insight into the construction of the internal services market in general and a comparative study of how two countries take EU legislation on board in different ways. (FRo)
*** STEPHEN WEATHERHILL, ULF BERNITZ (Eds.): The Regulation of Unfair Commercial Practices under EC Directive 2005/29. New Rules and New Techniques. Hart Publishing (16C Worcester Place, Oxford, OX1 2JW, UK. Tel: (44-1865) 517530 - Fax: 510710 - E-mail: mail@hartpub.co.uk - Internet: http://www.hartpub.co.uk ). "Studies of the Oxford Institute of European and Comparative Law" series. 2007, 290 pp, £45. ISBN 978-1-84113-699-8.
This book follows hot on the heels of a conference organised in 2006 under the auspices of the Oxford Institute of European and Comparative Law to examine the directive on a harmonised system to regulate unfair business-to-consumer commercial practices, thereby promoting European economic integration by providing better protection for consumers. Undoubtedly, Directive 2005/29/EC is an important part of European trade law because, as Stephen Weatherhill (Deputy Director of the Oxford institute) and Ulf Bernitz (of Stockholm University) explain in the introduction, "harmonising contract law is not simply a technical process. It unavoidably means the shaping of a species of European contract law". Nevertheless, the directive raises many questions and some aspects merit detailed study. While it is part of "common rules for a common market", in actual fact there is no homogenous European market in reality but rather national markets with their own particularities, so what might be considered unfair trading practice in one country may be seen as perfectly innocuous in another. The book considers the whether maximum harmonisation is feasible or even desirable. Discussing the new rules and techniques introduced by the directive, the authors stress that it has made a break in one sense with previous EU rules on unfair commercial practices because the new directive takes a more general approach. On the one hand, this prevents unscrupulous sales staff from easily getting round very specific rules and yet, as Stephen Weatherhill and Ulf Bernitz point out, "with flexibility comes unpredictability and imprecision". To sum up, the book provides detailed analysis of Directive 2005/29 and its contributions and limits from the viewpoint of sales staff and consumers alike. It also studies how the directive impacts on European law and its implementation at national level (FRo)
*** VINCENT RUZEK: L'action extérieure de la Communauté européenne en matière de droits de propriété intellectuelle. Approche institutionnelle. Editions Apogée (11 rue du Noyer, F-35000 Rennes. Tel: (33-2) 99324595 - Fax: 99324298 - E-mail: apogee.rennes@wanadoo.fr - Internet: http://www.editions-apogee.com ). 2007, 144 pp, €18. ISBN 978-2-84398-268-2.
This book is the continuation of a masters dissertation for the 'Centre de recherches européennes' in Rennes in France, looking at whether the European Community has the necessary tools at institutional level to assert itself on the world stage in the domain of intellectual property rights. The author starts by analysing the system of the Community's external powers in this connection, discerning gaps and incoherence but also the first jolting movements in the constitutional treaty of a full rehaul. The book then describes the obstacles hampering the EU's influence in specialised forums, arguing that the World Trade Organisation is more suitable for the EU. The author then urges the EU to ensure it does not focus on trade issues at the expense of social and cultural issues. (MT)
*** ALEXANDER BREXENDORFF: Rohstoffe im Kaspischen Becken. Völkerrechtliche Fragen der Förderung und des Transports von Erdöl und Erdgas. Peter Lang (1 Moosstrasse, CH-2542 Pieterlen. Tel: (41-32) 3761717 - Fax: 3761727 - E-mail: info@peterlang.com - Internet: http://www.peterlang.de ). "Schriften zum Staats- und Völkerrecht" series, No. 122. 2006, 586 pp, €80-40. ISBN 3-631-54968-7.
Presented at Würzburg University in Germany, this thesis studies tricky areas in the international law governing the running of oil and natural gas fields in the Caspian Sea region. Since the fall of the Soviet Union in December 1991, the new countries in the region have had to take a new look at various legal issues surrounding use of the vast oil and gas reserves, not only in terms of the area's geography, but also in terms of transporting the resources to reach global markets and the environmental impact of the oil and gas fields. The often conflicting relations between the various interests in the region have meant that it has not yet been possible to find a final solution to the problems that have arisen. Based on analysis of case law and the practise of international law on the running of oil and natural gas fields, the author puts forward some alternatives which could resolve existing conflicts. A very well documented book (there is also an index in English) which will be a useful contribution to the search for solutions in such a hotly disputed region. (GFr)