*** JACQUES PERTEK: Diplômes et professions en Europe. Editions Bruylant (67 rue de la Régence, B-1000 Brussels. Tel: (32-2) 5129842 - Fax: 5119477 - E-mail: jean@bruylant.be - Internet: http://www.bruylant.be ). 2008, 284 pp, €50. ISBN 978-2-8027-2450-6.
Holder ad personam of the Jean Monnet Chair at Jean Moulin Lyon III University in France, Prof. Pertek - who also chairs the European Studies Foundation in the Netherlands - has done some hugely useful work in this book, looking at the right to free circulation for EU citizens and some people from outside the EU from two viewpoints - in terms of job mobility on the one hand and studies at EU level on the other. What, he asks at the outset, would the right to free circulation be without mutual recognition of diplomas, certificates and other proofs of qualification? It would clearly mean very little, or disappear entirely.
In the first section of the book, devoted to practising a profession in another Member State, Jacques Pertek describes the way the EU has gradually removed the barriers to professional mobility. After pointing out that it is practising a professional activity (holding down a job) or at least having the capacity to do so, that leads to one being given the right to live in a different Member State from ones own, the author looks in great detail at the situation regarding professions for which qualifications are regulated, considering how recognition of diplomas and other proofs of qualification is organised by EU directives. He then looks at voluntary recognition, needed because derived law has no answers to various qualification recognition procedures, particularly for the part-qualified or those with certificates from outside the EU. The second part of the book looks at studying in a different education system in terms of access to study and recognition of certificates and diplomas. He paints a detailed picture of the complex interconnection between so-called academic recognition and the right to live in a country (which was only granted to students in the early 1990s) and the financial criteria for accessing training.
This legal study ends on a more polemical note. Prof. Pertek slams, for instance, transition measures whereby some 'old' Member States introduced different conditions for the arrival on their labour markets of people from new Member States. Calling this a negation of European citizenship, he is vitriolic in his comments. Unable to decide on how far the frontiers of the European Union should extend, incapable even of being clear about what the debate is really about, Member States and institutions believe new Member States and their citizens can join the club, writes the author. He notes that this scam is a perilous game, as the 2005 referenda on the draft constitutional treaty demonstrated all too clearly - the EU cannot be built without its communities and cannot be built by rejecting the people one wants to welcome, by setting up barriers that are unjustified and ineffective in equal measure. In the same spirit, he also slams the countries that maintain or invest unjustified obstacles to the free circulation of individuals, obstacles to study, work or daily life. He explains that this perverts the letter and the spirit of EU rules and also commits a crime of perjury that is far from trivial or marginal. The author argues that countries are serving their citizens ill and damaging the construction of Europe by giving the Barcelona Process too much leg-room. The process, he explains, is based on the need for consent which is the main attraction of it for citizens, but it has the effect of sending the Commission and European Parliament off the pitch.
Pierre Bouvier
*** FRITZ BREUSS, GERHARD FINK, STEFAN GRILLER (Eds.): Services Liberalisation in the Internal Market. Editions Springer (4-6 Sachsenplatz, 1201 Vienna. Tel: (43-1) 330 24 15-0 - Fax: 3302426 - e-mail: SDC.bookorder@springer.com - Internet: http://www.springeronline.com or http://www.springer.at ). "European Community Studies Association of Austria Publications Series", No. 6. 2008, 244 pp, €49-95. ISBN 978-3-211-22401-4.
Many column inches have been devoted to the EU directive on liberalising services in the single market. Like erstwhile EU Commissioner Frits Bolkestein, the Services Directive has been stigmatised by some (people have even been known to call it the Frankenstein Directive), accusing it of seriously jeopardising the 'European social model', while its defenders constantly proclaim that it will make it possible to create a raft of new jobs. Following on from an international conference organised in Vienna by the Austrian Association for Study of the European Community, this book makes a detailed scientific analysis of the legal, economic and administrative impact of the Services Directive in the form it was finally decided upon in November 2006 following the European Parliament's overhaul of the European Commission's initial draft. The book opens with a legal analysis of the directive, with Armin Hatje of Hamburg University looking at whether it has the right legal structure to meet the objectives it has been set or whether it runs the risk of conflicting with existing legislation in the Member States. The second essay, by lawyer Niklas Maydell, continues in the same vein but looks at things from the EU standpoint - could the draft interfere with Article 43 (freedom of establishment) and 49 (the free circulation of services) of the EU Treaty? The third chapter assesses the macro-economic implications of the Services Directive in an econometric approach, and the fourth looks at the directive's impact on financial markets and economic growth. Summing up, Prof. Stefan Griller of Vienna University draws up a balance sheet under a very provocative heading: "Two steps forward, how many back?".
(NDu)
*** CHRISTIAN HUBATSCH: Der Immobilienerwerb in der Europäischen Union. Vor dem Hintergrung der Osterweiterung. Duncker & Humblot (Postfach 41 03 29, D-12113 Berlin. Tel/Fax: (49-30) 79000631 - Internet: http://www.duncker-humblot.de ). "Schriften zum Europäischen Recht" series, No. 120. 2006, 328 pp. ISBN 3-428-12068-X.
This 2005 European law thesis for Heidelberg University on measures in European law on the acquisition of property is set against a very specific political situation since enlargement of the EU in 2004 to countries of central Europe. It emerged that the application of this legislation in the introduction of the single Market, connected in this neck of the woods with the implementation of the law of establishment and the freedom to invest, could result in a challenging of solutions in Poland and the Czech Republic in particular that have been highly sensitive in central Europe since the restoration of national boundaries at the end of World War Two. This book does not aim to focus research on these issues in particular but rather, by analysing the very nature of European law in this domain (which naturally has a very special role in facilitating the integration of citizens within the EU), to discern the extent to which EU law is asserted immediately and in an unlimited fashion, and the extent to which it is possible to introduce national or regional opt-outs (and the reasons for such opt-outs). There are often tensions between liberalisation of the property market and the pursuit of national interests, including local town and country planning and environmental protection. Ways of solving this type of conflict are suggested in the book, which points out how such solutions might meet EU law. The research ends with a number of useful suggestions that will be of great interest to readers with a background in such matters.
(GFr)
*** ANNA CIESLAR, ANDRE NAYER, BERNADETTE SMEESTERS (Eds.): Le droit à l'épanouissement de l'être humain au travail. Métamorphoses du droit social. Editions Bruylant (67 rue de la Régence, B-1000 Brussels. Tel: (32-2) 5129842 - Fax: 5119477 - e-mail: jean@bruylant.be - Internet: http://www.bruylant.be ). 2007, 857 pp. ISBN 978-2-8027-2353-0.
Mass redundancies and other forms of restructuring are gradually becoming the norm but this book aims to go against the stream by taking up the challenge of the right for human beings to reach fulfilment at work. Noting the growing trend for human beings to be treated as objects at work and the removal of human beings from the forefront of concerns following the current round of economic, financial and technical transformations of society, the authors warn against the new dangers of paid work when it comes to individuals' integrity, namely discrimination, alterations in one's state of health, time constraints, over-binding training, serious changes in employment contracts, and more. These are only some of the new risks that workers are facing to an ever greater extent these days, driving them inexorably towards alienation. Determined to counter what they describe as 'soft economic totalitarianism,' which keeps democratic structures and freedoms in place but dictates its own rules and turns its own priority into law, these three researchers from the 'Centre de Recherche et Prospective en Droit Social' of the 'Université Libre de Bruxelles' selected five themes to analyse in international, European and national law, also examining their consequences in the real work. After defining the framework of their work and the essence of their research, namely what 'fulfilment at work' could be (should be?), they start by studying the idea of equality at work, comparing and contrasting it with singularity. Is equality only achievable through non-discrimination? Is fulfilment the result of equality or vice versa? They then look at professional training and how it meshes with the personal aspirations of the individual and the interests of companies and society. Is physical and mental health a necessary component of fulfilment at work? This is the question asked in the third chapter, which also looks at combating stress and harassment. The authors study flexible working hours (discontinuity, night work, combining more than one part-time job, weekend work, etc) and how the working week impacts on fulfilment. The final analysis discusses autonomy from authority and the growing similarity between work done by employees and freelance work, particularly in terms of the obligation to achieve results, which was in the past only placed on freelancers.
(NDu)
*** SASKIA KLOSSE, TON HARTLIEF (Eds.): Shifts in Compensating Work-Related Injuries and Diseases. Editions Springer (see above). "Tort and Insurance Law" series, No. 20. 2007, 236 pp. ISBN 978-3-211-71555-0.
This book looks at shifts in compensating work-related injuries and diseases from the viewpoint of changes in governance. The result of a research programme funded by the Dutch Scientific Organisation (NOW) looking at compensation for damage and the shift from civil law to public funding and vice versa, it focuses on the situation in a number of countries (Germany, Belgium, England and the Netherlands) and an assessment of empirical studies carried out in the past in the United States. In addition to a general analysis, recent changes in legislation and doctrine and new areas of case law are dissected with the aim of discovering their exact nature, understanding the reasons that lie behind the changes and determining whether they had the expected impact. Aware that a legal approach will not in and of itself answer these questions, the authors decided to supplement it with an economic analysis. Although only covering a fraction of recent developments in this field, the study is clearly a useful reference tool. It demonstrates that political analyses should not be confined to the question of whether public or private governance is better, but should rather admit the option of examining the potential advantages of mixing these two basic forms of governance. (TBa)
*** WILLEM H. VAN BOOM, MICHAEL FAURE (Eds.): Shifts in Compensation between Private and Public Systems. Springer (see above). "Tort and Insurance Law" series, No. 22. 2007, 246 pp. ISBN 978-3-211-71553-6.
This is the last book in a trilogy on a research project into shifts in compensation that takes an overview and also looks in more detail at specific areas. The book connects up with the two previous works and looks at issues not identified in the earlier volumes, namely medical errors and natural and non-natural disasters. It is divided into three sections. The first looks at the theory of shifts in governance, case law on mutual consent in common law and whether the insurance market or public compensation schemes should be responsible for compensation. The section on medical errors compares and contrasts changes in the compensation system in various countries (France, England, Scandinavia and Germany) before looking at moving from responsibility to solidarity when it comes to congenital defects. The catastrophes section discusses the need for an international social security framework and the problem of solidarity in the face of natural disasters or catastrophes engineered by terrorist groups. An instructive book, demonstrating that there is no clear dividing line between private finance on the one hand and public finance on the other. It provides a rich overview of shifts in compensation systems in many domains and countries, demonstrating that such shifts seem to take every possible direction.
(TBa)