*** MARIA GRAZIA MELCHIONNI, ROBERTO DUCCI: La genèse des Traités de Rome. Entretiens inédits avec 18 acteurs et témoins de la négociation. Editions Economica (49 rue Héricart, F-75015 Paris) and Fondation Jean Monnet pour l'Europe (Ferme de Dorigny, CH-1015 Lausanne. Tel: (41-21) 6922090 - Fax: 6922095 - E-mail: secr@fjme.unil.ch - Internet: http://www.jean-monnet.ch ). "Cahiers rouges" series. 2007, 502 pp, €34. ISBN 978-2-7178-5430-5.
The Jean Monnet Foundation for Europe's "Cahiers Rouges" (red notebooks) of interviews and testimonials with figureheads involved in the construction of Europe always stand out. This issue is no exception to the rule - it is a particularly felicitous example in fact. As the Director of the Jean Monnet Foundation for Europe, Patrick Piffaretti, points out in the preface, the book arises from a 1984 initiative by Maria Grazia Melchionni, a historian and oral history expert, carried out in collaboration with ambassador Roberto Ducci (whom she assisted in his course on the theory of international relations), which provides today's reader with the privilege of delving into the complex unfolding of negotiations that changed Europe's destiny, leading to the Treaties of Rome. The fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Treaties of Rome was celebrated last year. Margot Wallström hints in a 'message' at the start of the book that the Treaties were the first stones to be laid in the ambitious European construction, describing the idea of uniting European forces and energy within a community of Member States as an incredibly audacious and original idea. However, this is belied by the fact that it was, in reality, a few years earlier that the very first Community was set up - the coal and steel community. All the same, it is true that it was the signing of the Treaties of Rome that effectively established European Union in the form it takes today.
Does this form remain true to the aspirations of the people who fashioned and sculpted the Treaties of Rome? This was the question which motivated Roberto Ducci to start researching in 1984. Former 'number two' at the Committee of Heads of Delegation to the Brussels Conference in the late 1950s, a member of the Euratom Committee and President of the Institutional Committee which drew up the Treaties, this enormous figurehead in Italian diplomacy passed away in 1985. At that time, as a fellow partner in the European experience of the time explains, Ducci was motivated by the opportunity to discuss with other players at the Val Duchesse conference in Brussels the future development of the European project, anxious to seek with the other players answers to the questions which had been at the heart of his concerns for a long time, namely why was the dream of a fast and fully unified Europe proving so illusory? What mistakes had been made to derail the European process from its initial aim, leading to the political identity that had been formed being unsatisfactory and somewhat lacking? The book shows that the balance sheet that the stakeholders-cum-eye witnesses drew up twenty-five years after the Treaties of Rome were introduced, does not always live up to the high hopes that inspired the Treaties, but their musings shed light, above all, on the common ideal that underpinned the work and faith in the European project, and Patrick Piffaretti rightly points out that for these people who had lived through world wars, the challenge at the time of the negotiations remained intact - to build a united European continent.
Who are the figureheads who are members of this polyphonic chorus to negotiate the foundation of Europe, the outcome of mostly friendly talks, carried out, like the negotiations themselves, in French - the lingua franca of European summits at that time? Firstly, Italian diplomat Franco Bobba who was described by Alcide De Gasperi as "ce grand garçon-là", who went on to become Director General at the European Commission. In his office in Rome, he had on the wall one of the posters pasted on the walls of Rome on 25 March 1957 of six young women holding hands, all wrapped in the flags of their countries and standing in front of a map of Europe… a poster signed by the same people who signed the Treaties of Rome. Next, Dutch ambassador Johannes Linthorst Homan, a federalist activist who would be one of the signatories of the Treaties with Joseph Luns before becoming the Dutch Permanent Representative, member of the High Authority, and then head of the European Commission's delegation to the British government until 1971. Then there is the leading Luxembourg lawyer Pierre Pescatore, who would end his career as judge at the European Court of Justice. There is a biography of each of the protagonists and Prof. Melchionni explains in the biography of Pierre Pescatore that he related the extraordinary experience of the radical conversion to the European project that he experienced in the group of lawyers negotiating the Treaties, also explaining how come the Treaties were so well put together from the legal point of view. Another Luxembourg national, former Prime Minister Pierre Werner, a few months before his final withdrawal from active political life, issued a message of hope and confidence in the future of the united Europe. Then the German lawyer Hans von der Groeben, who recently passed away. As co-author with Pierre Uri of the Spaak Report, he would become a member of the European Commission. He explains how Jean Monnet tried in vain to get the German authorities to delay the economic integration project to the benefit of Euratom alone. The question of Euratom was at the heart of talks with another German, Prof. Ulrich Meyer-Cording, who highlights that Germany's abandoning of any aims to use the atom for military aims proved an obstacle to the planning of the Treaty. Then Belgian economist Jean-Charles Snoy et d'Oppuers, a signatory of the Treaties with Paul-Henri Spaak following the former's period as head of the Belgian delegation to the Brussels negotiations. Another Belgian, diplomat Robert Rothschild, sheds light on the character and ideas of Paul-Henri Spaak, in whose closest circles he worked and of whom he became a close friend. Former French Prime Minister Maurice Faure, who, as the book explains, is seeking to find in historical events the signs of the search for power that motivates human beings, helps readers understand the French idea of Europe. Another Frenchman, economist Pierre Uri, whose role has not yet been rightly recognised by history, given that he was the main writer of the Spaak Report, which was a masterpiece of several architects but put down on paper by a single architect, as the book explains. Another monument in the European project, a Frenchman born in Constantinople (Istanbul), Emile Noël, the mythical Secretary General of the European Commission, who explains things in a simple and truthful manner as if the events had taken place yesterday rather than thirty years before. Another Frenchman, this time Robert Marjolin, who would become Vice-President of the European Commission, describing in the development of the Commission the viewpoint of economists and French business circles relating to the problem of European economic cooperation, followed by European economic integration. Then Dutchman Ernst Hans van der Beugel who explains why the Netherlands wanted Anglo-Saxon ideas kept out of the European unification project. Fellow Dutchman Max Kohnstamm, an extremely close member of Jean Monnet's circle, Roberto Ducci himself, and Italian liberal politician Vittorio Badini Confalonieri, an important figure in fighting fascism, and fellow Italian Achille Albonetti, a great energy expert. Finally, another Italian, a certain… Emanuele Gazzo, lynchpin of the journal you are reading right now, who was also at the talks at Val Duchesse, where the book explains that he would sometimes go inside to meet delegates in the park and get them to reveal their secrets…
Michel Theys
*** ERIC BUSSIERE, MICHEL DUMOULIN, SYLVAIN SCHIRMANN (Eds.): Milieux économiques et intégration européenne au XXe siècle. La crise des années 1970 - De la conférence de La Haye à la veille de la relance des années 1980. Presses Interuniversitaires Européennes - Peter Lang (1 av. Maurice, B-1050 Brussels. E-mail: pie@peterlang.com - Internet: http://www.peterlang.com ). "Euroclio" series,No. 35. 2006, 318 pp. ISBN 90-5201-300-4.
Composed of articles by young researchers and more experienced historians and economists, this book follows on from a conference organised more than three years ago by the 'Comité pour l'histoire économique et financière de la France' and sections of the Universities of Metz, Paris I - Paris IV in France and the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium, re-assessing a period which provides extremely rich lessons for the current crisis-ridden EU. The economic crisis of the 1970s blocked the way for economic and monetary integration, with fundamental differences arising between Member States, and Europe entering a spiral of decline like the one that had characterised the post-war period, explains Isabelle Cassiers in an overarching article, adding that this made the 1970s crisis not only a breakdown between two periods in the history of Europe but, above all, a change of paradigm, in other words, a change in the way the economic laws of the world they were living in - and methods for influencing them - were seen by economic and social players. The upturn of the 1980s was clearly the consequence of a series of awarenesses and research, many of which are studied in this book. The first section looks at various measures to deal with monetary disorder, including two extremely useful essays, one by Ivo Maes on the monetary integration plans drawn up at the Commission in the 1970s, and one by Jean-Claude Koeune on introducing the first experimental European Monetary Exchange System. The oil crisis is discussed in the second part of the book, particularly in the light of the European Commission's proposals on the electricity industry. The third part looks at the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (even back then.), industrial policy and the gradual abandoning of the national champions strategy, and the Franco-German industrial cooperation experiment Unidata.
(MT)
*** THOMAS CHRISTIANSEN, TORBJÖRN LARSSON (Eds.): The Role of Committees in the Policy-Process of the European Union. Legislation, Implementation and Deliberation. Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd (Glensanda House, Montpellier Parade, Cheltenham, Glos GL50 1UA, UK.
Tel: (44-1242) 226934 - Fax: 262111 - E-mail: info@e-elgar.co.uk - Internet: http://www.e-elgar.com ). 2007, 307 pp. ISBN 978-1-84542-622-4.
Committees are a vital component of the way the European Union operates. They are to be found everywhere in a bewildering array of functions, status and composition. Many researchers, students and people dealing with the European Institutions (like lobbyists) will therefore find the information in this book invaluable. Before going into detail, the authors describe the backdrop to committees as part of the European Union's supra-national model of governance and distance the book somewhat from researching the formal role of committees (present at all levels) in the legislative process, in order to focus on questions of informal governance and democratic legitimacy. As Torbjörn Larsson explains, informal EU structures have been one of the main targets of criticism in this domain and, because the EU is full of committees and committee work, debate has focussed on the use and abuse of said committees. The authors go on to raise the question of whether committees are involved in formalising the decision-making process in the EU and whether the people operating in committees aim above all to defend the arguments they arrived with at the start or whether they are prepared to actually change their views during discussion. The book then looks in more detail at the different types of committee and their roles, for example expert groups helping the European Commission, and Council of Ministers' working groups. Comitology is naturally also covered in several chapters looking at how it works and its impact on the legislative process, along with how it is put into practice by the European Parliament , the Council and the Court of Justice.
(FRo)
*** CHRISTIAN JOERGES: Integration durch Entrechtlichung? Ein Zwischenruf. Zentrum für europäische Rechtspolitik an der uUniversität Bremen (Universitätsallee, GW 1 D-28359 Bremen. Tel: (49-421) 2182247 - Fax: 2183403 - E-mail: zerp@serp.uni-bremen.de - Internet http://www.zerp.uni-bremen ). 2007, 35 pp, €8.
This short book looks at governance, one of the vaguest concepts there is, but which plays an important role in the process of redefining how the European Union generates its laws. The 'Community Method' used at the start rapidly showed itself to be insufficient in terms of the need for legislation in the ever more complex European integration project. So governance was adopted with the aim of generating efficiency in management. The idea of governance, however, brings together ways of exercising power that are not included in the normal framework of relations between leaders and those they lead that is governed by law and political responsibility. It has not therefore proved easy to reconcile governance with the notion of the rule of law upon which the European Union is based and there was plenty of debate before it was adopted. Christian Joerges' study looks at the debates generated by its adoption and also looks further, launching the idea of conflict of law as the new mode of regulation. Positive law would therefore be no more than an optional framework available for the different parties involved, to assist them in their search for a solution to problems.
(MGr)
*** EAMON MAHER, EUGENE O'BRIEN, GRACE NEVILLE (Eds. de): Reinventing Ireland Through a French Prism. Peter Lang (see above). "Studies in Franco-Irish Relations" series, No. 1. 2007, 347 pp, €52-80. ISBN 978-3-631-56639-8.
Over the course of time, European countries have woven a dense web of reciprocal influence. Not only have they gained cultural wealth from this web, but the way they are seen by others has also contributed toward the fashioning of the image they have of themselves. In the case of Ireland, for many reasons (including the desire to get some freedom from the powerful neighbour, Great Britain), the mirror was French for many decades, as it was German for the generation of The Nation newspaper in the middle of the nineteenth century, and North American at the end of the twentieth century, explains Michael Cronin, lecturer at Dublin University. The book's essays follow on from a conference at the Irish Centre for Franco-Irish Studies, highlighting various aspects of the cross fertilisation of ideas between the two countries. The approach tends to rely on the study of literature, but other angles are also taken, like when Louise Fuller looks at Jean Blanchard's study of Irish Catholicism in the 1950s, or when Eugene O'Brien compares Irish and French republicanism. The cultural and literary connections covered by the book are mainly culled from the last two centuries, but Michael Cronin argues that the advance of European integration seems to promise an intensification of Franco-Irish relations in the future, particularly given the Irish electorate's general Europhilia.
(FRo)