*** GENEVIEVE DUCHENNE, VINCENT DUJARDIN, MICHEL DUMOULIN (Eds.): Rey, Snoy, Spaak, fondateurs belges de l'Europe. Bruylant (67 rue de la Régence, B-1000 Bruxelles. Tel: (32-2) 5129842 - Fax: 5119477 - E-mail: jean@bruylant.be - Internet: http://www.bruylant.be ). 'Bibliothèque de la Fondation Paul-Henri Spaak' series, 2007, 455 pp, €75. ISBN 978-2-8027-2498-8.
This fine book publishes the proceedings of a conference held in May 2007 at the Academia Belgica in Rome, coordinated by historians from the Catholic University of Louvain. The aim of the high-level conference was to discuss the personality, thought and action of three Belgian figureheads who played a key role in the creation of the European Community and its relaunching in the 1960s, and also, most importantly, to discern to what extent their contribution has left a heritage which could be utilised again today as Europe again finds itself running out of steam.
Who were Jean Rey, the first president of the single Commission, Paul-Henri Spaak, the Belgian 'father of Europe' par excellence, and Jean-Charles Snoy et d'Oppuers, Belgian and European statesman who, along with Paul-Henri Spaak, signed the Treaty of Rome? What training did they have, how did they discover Europe and the challenges it involved? What was their vision of the future? How did they contribute, as players, up and downstream from the treaties, to their implementation? The sixteen essays and one hundred eye-witness reports published in this volume attempt to answer such questions (there are also some fine pages on Albert Coppé, who holds the record as the longest serving Commissioner), providing useful information about the ethical and even spiritual dimensions of the careers of these figureheads from different ideological horizons. No doubt they would all recognise their path in this comment by Paul-Henri Spaak to a Belgian Catholic deputy who, in 1954, accused him of buying into the European mystique, quoted by Prof. Michel Dumoulin: 'We have to prove to the public that we are pursuing the achievement of a grand idea, a genuine renewal. Of course, I agree with you if you mean by 'mystique' a total lack of sense of reality, but I believe a certain mystique is needed, the mystique of idealism based on solid realities'.
The book is overflowing with jewels of this ilk, precious food for thought in the current day. In essays relating the tensions between France under de Gaulle and Jean Rey, who Paris felt was over-federalist, Jean-Jacques Rey pointed out that his father had considered, in a book published in 1981, dedicated to Henri Brugmans, the setting up of a Commission with twenty Commissioners but had feared that such a large Commission would see its authorities weakened. Subjects for deeper reflection emerge constantly as one reads the book, particularly as some articles take the reader right to the heart and essence of the existential combat for a well-understood European integration project. Belgium's ambassador to Rome at the time when the conference was organised, Jean De Ruyt, now Belgium's Permanent Representative to the European Union, welcomed the participants by explaining that as a young diplomat he, like many of his colleagues, had felt obliged to put up with criticism from his British friends, who accused him of being too hasty to sell off national sovereignty. In the concluding pages, one of his eminent predecessors, Philippe de Schoutheete, makes a comparison between Paul-Henri Spaak's leadership qualities - 'someone who, having a clear political vision, derived strong beliefs from it and who also had the ability to communicate these beliefs and a passionate desire to do so' - with those of Tony Blair, the most pro-European British prime minister since Ted Heath, Tony Blair also had 'a vision of Europe and strong views about Europe', along with huge talent as a communicator: 'Unfortunately, he did not choose to exercise this strength of conviction on the British electorate. When speaking to his fellow countrymen, Tony Blair was prudent and coy and in this way, he left the field open for the Euroscepticism pumped out by the Murdoch and Pearson press on a daily basis. After ten years in power, his country is more distant than ever from the European project. What a shame!' regrets Philippe de Schoutheete, who also has a go at the previous government of Balkenende in the Netherlands for its lack of an European ideal. He says that only the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, gives grounds for hope. All great food for thought as the date draws closer when the figures that will incorporate the dream of Europe are about to be appointed.
Michel Theys
*** GENEVIEVE DUCHENNE: Esquisses d'une Europe nouvelle. L'européisme dans la Belgique de l'entre-deux-guerres (1919-1939). Presses Interuniversitaires Européennes / Peter Lang (1 av. Maurice, B-1050 Brussels. E-mail: pie@peterlang.com - Internet: http://www.peterlang.com ). 'Euroclio' series, No. 40. 2008, 712 pp. ISBN 978-90-5201-367-1.
Although with a raft of publications under her belt and well-known in the circles of historians specialising in European affairs, Geneviève Duchenne was, only just a few years ago, a promising student of Prof. Michel Dumoulin at the 'Université Catholique de Louvain' in Belgium. This majestic tome is based on her doctoral thesis on the rising power of an idea of Europe, and its defence, between the two world wars. The author studies the European movement in its Belgian format, which means that she also studies how the Belgian arm interacts with initiatives in other European countries, along with how Belgium reacts (officially and unofficially), whether in terms of the Briand Plan or the ideas argued, for example, by Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi, the leader of the Paneuropa movement. The fruit of many contacts and much research, which took the author as far as the Moscow archives, the book brings characters to life who have been largely forgotten by everyone apart from their family and historians, also breathing life into their ideas and struggles. It is disturbing to see just how relevant their struggles are today, a century later. Among the conclusions drawn by the author, there is the fact that the Belgian geopolitical situation led at the time to a bias in favour of a united Europe, since this little country is situated in the heart of Europe, stuck between two big, often stifling, neighbours and at the time, it tried to be a uniting factor to pacify a continent in research of political and economic balance. This positioning remains viable today, to such an extent, observes Geneviève Duchenne, that 'studying Belgium's strategies and European ambitions gives food for thought about the role and place of small nations in Europe today'. Not to mention, she adds, that 'the idea of Europe made it possible - and still makes it possible today - to legitimise the federalisation of the Belgian state,' which proves that there is nothing new under the sun in some parts of Europe…
(MT)
*** JEAN-CLAUDE PIRIS: Il processo di riforma dell'UE. Centro nazionale di informazione e documentazione europea (Palazzo Campanari, 149 via Quatro Novembre, I-00187 Rome. Tel: (39-6) 69999257 - Call Centre: 69999227/230 - Fax: 6786159 - E-mail: info@cide.it). 2007, 300 pp. ISBN 88-901393-2-3.
Starting with the failure to ratify the constitutional treaty, Jean-Claude Piris, director of the legal department at the Council of the EU's Secretariat General, provides a fine legal analysis in this book (with a preface by Giuliano Amato) of the important scientific literature on recent developments in the process of reforming the EU. This volume provides a wealth of important information on the proper functioning of institutions and innovations that will determine the future regulatory set-up. In its central chapters, the reader will find the updated outline of amendments to the system's legal framework and the rationalising of the decision adoption procedures. The author also defines with great clarity the difficult political background of the long reflection period that followed the two referendum defeats and imposed innovations that were incorporated in the Lisbon Reform Treaty. Summing up, the great expert answers two basic questions - what is the point of the EU and will it become a federal state?
(JPe)
*** The Treaty of Lisbon in Perspective. The European Reform Treaty: Consolidated Treaty on European Union and the Consolidated Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. British Management Data Foundation (Highfield, Longridge, Sheepscombe, Stroud, Gloucestershire, England, GL6 7QU. Tel: (44-1452) 812837 - Fax: 812527 - E-mail: bmdfstroud@aol.com - Internet: http://www.bmdf.co.uk or http://www.eurotreaties.com ). 2008, 448 pp, £27-50. ISBN 978-0-9558262-0-7.
This book describes the Lisbon Treaty in detail and will clearly be very useful for anyone who has to find their way around the EU's legal texts and treaties and how it operates. The Reform Treaty is a series of amendment to the existing treaties and the authors decided to add notes referring to the origins of each article, whether in an existing treaty, the draft constitution or something new. They also included explanations and a table of comparisons on changes in the numbering of articles to help people find the original article. The book also includes a history of the EU treaties, and analysis of changes in the decision-making process (moving from unanimous voting to qualified majority voting at the Council, for example) and the expanding role of the European Parliament. The reluctance of UK business circles is also studied. The book also covers the May 2007 Berlin Declaration, the EU's Charter of Fundamental Rights and the Laeken Declaration, along with speeches made at the signing of the Reform Treaty by Jose Manuel Barroso and the Portuguese prime minister, Socrates.
(NDu)
*** B. GUY PETERS: The two futures of governing. Decentering and Recentering Processes in Governing. Institut für Höhere Studien (56 Stumpergasse, A-1060 Vienna. Tel: (43-1) 599 91-237 - Fax: 59991-555 - E-mail: library@ihs.ac.at - Internet: http://www.ihs.ac.at/library ). 'Reihe Politikwissenschaft - Political Science Series', No. 114. 2008, 18 pp, €8.
Looking at reform and modernisation in recent years by governments of industrialised countries, this brief study analyses in detail the impact of the reform movement and considers its future. The various reforms undertaken in order to increase efficiency by Western governments in recent decades are studied by the author, who discerns two styles: New Public Management and Governance, both of which tend to decentralise decision-making to lowers levels of the government system. Generally increasing efficiency, the reforms have, in the view of the author, a lecturer at Pittsburgh University in the United States, created new malfunctions and problems with coherence and coordination, and in terms of control by central government. The basic thesis of the first method is that in order to increase the performance of the public sector, it should be made more like the private sector and have as much freedom as the private sector, in order to promote creativity among its managers. The second method promotes the role of social actors in drawing up and implementing policies, tending to delegate powers to networks and non-profit making associations. There are pros and cons with both styles, according to the Guy Peters, who argues that they are complementary because as problems with the reforms arise, each method tends to use the other's solutions, creating thereby a third style that he terms 'metagovernance'. The future may well reside somewhere in the best of both worlds. The author suggests the two be merged in order to take advantage of their strong points and play down their weak points.
(NDu)
*** FRANCIS SNYDER (Ed.): Designing the European Union - L'Union européenne: Projets de société en devenir. Bruylant (see above). "Travaux du Ceric" series. 2007, 214 pp. ISBN 978-2-8027-2374-5.
This book focuses on big issues in the European Union and follows on from the 'Quatrième Rencontre Internationale des Jeunes Chercheurs' (RIJC) in Aix-en-Provence in France in November 2005, which provided an opportunity for young researches to present their work and have it published. Three issues are considered - education and social justice, asylum and immigration, and political identity and constitutionalism. The interesting research demonstrates that young researchers today, who will be the recognised researchers and political decision-makers of the future, are fully capable of making an important contribution to the formidable task of designing the European Union.
(TBa)
*** The Federalist Debate. Papers on Federalism in Europe and the World. Einstein Center for International Studies (26 via Schina, I-10144 Turin. Tel/Fax: (+39-011) 4732843 - E-mail: federalist.debate@libero.it - Internet: http://www.federalist.debate.org ). 2008, No. 1, 64 pp. Annual subscription: €15.
In this issue, the editorial of this ever interesting federalist publication looks at problems facing democracy in an era of globalisation, in other words at a time when the market has become global but politics, which is supposed to control the market, remains confined to national boundaries. In this debilitating and potentially explosive context, the review believes that the European Parliament is a laboratory of international democracy, and the EU is better equpped than anywhere else to try and bring the whole world to embark on a beneficial experiment - planetary democracy.
(MT)