*** MARIANNE DONY: Après la réforme de Lisbonne. Les nouveaux traités européens. Editions de l'Université de Bruxelles (26 av. Paul Héger, CP 163, B-1000 Brussels. Tel: (32-2) 6503799 - Fax: 6503794 - E-mail: editions@admin.ulb.ac.be - Internet: http: //www-editions-universite-bruxelles.be). 2008, 309 pp, €12. ISBN 978-2-8004-1410-2.
Marianne Dony likes striking while the iron is hot. Director of the European Studies Institute at the 'Université libre de Bruxelles' in Brussels, she provides in this book an initial consolidated (unofficial but perfectly reliable) version of the treaties revised by the Lisbon Treaty, along with the new or amended protocols to it. She also adds the statements adopted at the Intergovernmental Conference of 2007 and the full text of the European Charter of Fundamental Rights, along with explanatory notes. The book is clearly an invaluable reference book for everyone, whether students, practitioners, academics or ordinary people, obliged or feeling the need to gain clear understanding of the elements upon which, failing any new hiccough in the ratification process, the adventure of the European project shall be based in the future.
In the introduction, the author, a specialist in European law, has the excellent idea of setting the Lisbon Treaty against the backdrop of the historical process that began at the start of the 1950s, noting in passing that this Reform Treaty is the most recent, but probably not the last, stage in a long-drawn-out adventure of which the Constitution would not even have been the fifty-year achievement, unlike what Valéry Giscard d'Estaing hinted. Marianne Dony has also taken another excellent initiative by making an analysis in the introduction that distinguishes between parts of the Reform Treaty that come from the Constitution and new aspects. She comments, for example, that there is an undeniable continuity with the progress achieved by the Members of the Convention, welcoming in this connection the explicit recognition of the EU having fully legal 'personality', the scrapping of pillars, a clarification of EU powers which has the 'merit' of showing that most of them 'are not exclusive but are shared with the Member States', and the advent of an EU with less economic terminology (the author believes that the door left ajar for participatory democracy with the right of citizens' initiatives might prove a powerful incentive for cross-border mobilisation and therefore be a first step in the direction of setting up a European public arena such as is necessary to support the EU's legitimacy). Will the Reform Treaty give the EU more teeth? Here, Marianne Dony is more doubtful, commenting that the fact that the High Representative for foreign affairs will wear a double hat (Commission and Council) and the security policy implying 'double allegiance' could raise controversial issues in the future. The same goes for the high-risk cohabitation between the High Representative, the President of the European Council and the President of the European Commission. The author regrets that the constitutional heritage required across-the-board ratification of the new Treaty and thereby opened the door to 'new blockages'.
Among "major changes from the Constitution", Marianne Dony notes the dropping of a single legal text, with the Lisbon Treaty simply adding a new layer to what is already illegible layers upon layers, with little clarity of how the Treaty on the Union meshes with the Treaty on its functioning, the abandonment of all constitutional attributes (including disappearance of the measure announcing the primacy of EU law). On the scrapping of free and unbiased competition as one of the EU's objectives (which has become no more than a necessary means for the smooth operation of the internal market), the author feels that the scope of the change will depend on how it is interpreted by the institutions, particularly the European Court of Justice, which may or may not decide to use the new wording when ruling on cases pitting social values against the common market and competition. The author welcomes the re-introduction of the introduction of economic and monetary union with the euro as its currency as one of the EU's objectives, 'thereby remedying an unexplained omission in the Constitution'. Marianne Dony also comments that there is a definition of the EU's powers that reflects mistrust of the member states. She looks in detail at the way qualified majorities are calculated and other minor institutional changes and the system of derogations. Enlightening work!
Michel Theys
*** PIERRE LEQUILLER (Ed.): Le traité de Lisbonne: un traité indispensable et urgent. Délégation pour l'Union européenne de l'Assemblée nationale (Boutique de l'Assemblée nationale, 7 rue Aristide Briand, F-75007 Paris. Tel: (33-1) 40630033 - Internet: http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr ). "Rapport d'information" series, No. 562. 2008, 117 and 368 pp, €5 and €8. ISBN 978-2-11-124236-4 and 978-2-11-124252-4.
This newsletter comes into two volumes - the first sees French parliamentarian Pierre Lequiller, former European Convention member, enthusiastically sell the EU's new Reform Treaty, and the second compares current treaty measures with the new ones drafted by the Intergovernmental Conference recently.
(MT)
*** MARC JOLY: Le mythe Jean Monnet. CNRS Editions (15 rue Malebranche, F-75005 Paris). 2007, 238 pp, €14. ISBN 978-2-271-06575-9.
What is a myth? The word has several meanings and is difficult to define. Does it mean a fabulous tale of an event which has meaning whether or not it actually took place? Or does it mean a purely imaginative construct verging on mystification? Or is it an image of a fictitious future presented in order to stimulate action? It is clearly the third meaning that has implicitly been taken on board by the author of this book. Not that he thinks that Jean Monnet, as a human being, is a myth, but because Jean Monnet's action seems, in the author's view, to relate to mythical thought.
The idea is simple enough, simplistic even. It can be expressed in one sentence - that all Jean Monnet's thought and action tends to promote the exercise of elite/European sovereignty over the free exercise of popular/national sovereignty. It is easy to understand that this well-documented book with its plentiful quotations is, a posteriori, an apology for the French no vote in the 29 May 2005 referendum (the Dutch no vote is only covered analogically). If we follow the author's thought, the sovereign nation (democratic, it is true), is the highest stage in the evolution of political society. Readers will not be surprised to learn that Marc Joly is also the author of a book, "Le Souverainisme", with a preface by Philippe de Saint-Robert and a postscript by Jean-Pierre Chevènement (Editions Œil, 2001). He is a national councillor at the 'Mouvement des Citoyens' chaired by Jean-Pierre Chevènement in France.
While the book's thesis is questionable because the French and Dutch no votes are probably not the end of the history of the European Union, the documentation the author dips into is not without interest. With an inkling of malice, one could even ask whether the author is not himself the victim of the very myth he denounces. As proof of this, I cite two quotations from the end of the book. One is from Robert Schuman: "Europe's political unity does not mean absorption of the nation". The other is from Jean Monnet himself: "Better to disagree around a table than on a battlefield." Myth or no myth, the kernel of the problem is contained in those words …
(J-RR)
*** SIMON LAIMER (Ed.): Euregio - quo vadis? Editions Neuer wissenschaftlicher Verlag (42/6 Argentinierstrasse, A-1040 Vienna. Tel: (43-1) 5356103-24 - Fax: 5356103-25 - E-mail: office@nwv.at - Internet: http://www.nwv.at ). 2006, 209 pp, €38-80. ISBN 978-3-7083-0352-9.
Following on from a symposium, this book does not look at European regions in general, but focusses in on the region of the Tyrol in Austria, South Tyrol (Alto Adige) in Italy and Trentino in Italy. The symposium brought together political leaders, academics and managers of bodies affected by cross-border trade. The main issue on the agenda was the utility of regions in the EU, particularly in the light of the looming institutional reforms of the EU. Trade in goods was also discussed, but most of the book is given over to practical experience and the political perspectives of beefings up the regions within the European Union. Although the geographical spread is relatively limited, it is useful to look at subjects close-up because it is along national borders that European populations interact, and their leaders must learn how to work together. In many respects, cross-border regions are a laboratory for the European Union as a whole.
(MGr)
*** BIRTE WASSENBERG: Vers une eurorégion ? La coopération transfrontalière franco-germano-suisse dans l'espace du Rhin supérieur de 1975 à 2000. Presses Interuniversitaires Européennes - Peter Lang (1 av. Maurice, B-1050 Brussels. E-mail: info@peterlang.com - Internet: http://www.peterlang.com ). "Euroclio" series, No. 38. 2007, 487 pp, €46-50. ISBN 978-90-5201-340-4.
Senior lecturer in modern international relations at the 'Institut des hautes études européennes' of Robert Schuman University in Strasbourg, Birte Wassenberg has carried out some remarkable research into cross-border cooperation between Germany, France and Switzerland in the Upper Rhine area since 1975, known as the Dreieckland or "the country with three borders," which she describes in this book. This country does not exist, as Swiss historian Markus Kutter put it, but does it exist as a Euroregion, possibly even a model Euroregion? The author tests out this hypothesis in this dense, carefully and scientifically marshalled book which is written in a style suitable for the general public. It concludes that German, French and Swiss politicians want to bring the citizens concerned to gradually take a cross-border identity and area on board, which would turn the Upper Rhine into an experiment in integration. This would make Goethe right when he wrote that there is a level at which we feel the happiness and tribulations of the neighbouring country as if we experienced them ourselves.
(PBo)
*** VOLKMAR GESSNER, DAVID NELKEN (Eds.): European Ways of Law. Towards a European Sociology of Law. 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 ). "Onati International Series in Law and Society". 2007, 393 pp, ISBN 978-1-84113-778-0..
The latest in a series of research and original theories on the connections between law, institutions and social processes, this book focuses on the existence (or lack) of a sociology of war. Taking as their starting point various disciplines like comparative law, philosophy of law and the history of law, the authors shed light on areas of convergence and divergence in European ways of law, describing the European legal styles, which differ from West to East and North and South, going on to analyse the nuances to see how far they go. In addition to theorising on the role of law in European society, the book aims above all to determine whether there is a European vision of law, which leads the authors to consider the hefty role law plays in the European integration process. They explain that in fact, "European law also exists through its success in expanding outside its own space", and the generation by the EU of a unified, harmonised system of law under the influence of the European Court of Justice is leading to a "New European Legal Culture". They also note that European law can be identified by its common denominator - rejection of the idea that law should be governed by the market. This means that as a whole, European law stands opposed to the US road. Impregnated with the desire for a nuanced approach, this research also points out that the opposing of the European dream and the American dream in fact hides a certain convergence between the two ways of law (as is shown by England, a genuine link between the two). A very comprehensive source of nuanced information and ideas on the sociology of European law.
(TBa)
*** JEAN-MARIE LE BRETON (Ed.): France et Grande-Bretagne: mythes et préjugés. Actes du colloque organisé par l'association France - Grande-Bretagne. 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.libraireharmattan.com ). 2007, 98 pp, €11. ISBN 978-2-296-02987-3.
A conference was held by an association wanting to build long-lasting bridges between Paris and London that brought together a series of French and British figureheads a little over a year ago, who gave full rein to their reflections on the relevance of myths and prejudices that create a gap between the two countries. The book describes work on the different sensitivities that may be expressed when it comes to law, democratic institutions, economic models, security and relations with the United States. There is, for example, an article by Didier Maus, President of the French Constitutionalists Association, that while everyone agrees that it is because of the British that it was possible to develop systems of representative democracy, it might have been perhaps because someone had the flash of genius that inspired them to ask the Hanover dynasty to come and sit on the throne of England even though they did not speak English - an absolutely fabulous way of ensuring that the monarchy did not get involved in running the country.
(PBo)