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| ACCIDENTAL CONSTITUTION : The Making of Europe’s Constitutional Treaty, Second Edition [Peter Norman] Peter Norman’s ‘Accidental Constitution’ occupies a unique position in recent writings about the European Union. Fluent, witty and accessible, this highly acclaimed book, published by EuroComment of Brussels, remains the only authoritative account of the European Convention and the controversial draft Constitution that it produced. Peter Norman has now taken the story of the EU’s ‘Accidental Constitution’ further. Subtitled, 'The Making of Europe’s Constitutional Treaty’, the new edition explains the text that must now be ratified by all the Union’s 25 member states. It sheds light on the complex political and constitutional issues that the EU’s leaders set out to solve and explains why the subsequent negotiations among the member states came close to disaster before ending in agreement. Knowing how the European Union’s constitution came about is crucial to understanding a text that could have a profound effect on the lives of 500 million European citizens for decades to come. This book, written by a former bureau chief of the Financial Times in Brussels, draws on a wealth of documentary evidence, the insights gained from talking to key participants in the creation of the EU’s constitutional treaty and the author’s expert knowledge of EU affairs. Aimed at the lay reader as well as the specialist, the book is essential reading for all who want to understand the European Union of today. It is a tale of people and politics. It is also a tale of the unexpected. That is why the book is called the "Accidental Constitution". REVIEW: "Mr Norman's [book] is that rare thing, an objective account of the problems facing the European Union. Despite the no votes, his book has by no means been overtaken by events, and should be carefully consulted by those seeking to recover something from the wreck." -- The Economist, June 2, 2005 { 332pp, 160x240mm, May 2005; PB, £19.95, 9077110089:9789077110089 , EuroComment } |
| BARCELONA COUNCIL [Peter Ludlow] This is the second volume in a new series of commentaries on every meeting of the European Council. Based on extensive unpublished and unattributable sources, it gives a unique insight into how the EU works and how it affects the lives of all EU citizens. { 274pp, 185x245mm, December 2002; PB, £19.99, 907711002X:9789077110027 , EuroComment } |
| DEALING WITH TURKEY : The European Council of 16-17 December 2004 [Peter Ludlow] The December European Council was about Turkey or, more specifically still, about whether and on what terms the EU should open accession negotiations with the Turkish goverment. The final decision was positive. It was only arrived at however after lengthy and at times painful negotiations inside Coreper and the European Council and between the Presidency and Turkey. In his latest Briefing Note, Peter Ludlow provides a detailed analysis of how the decision was reached and what it is likely to mean for both the Union and Turkey. Based as usual on confidential oral and written sources, it throws entirely new light on one of the most complex and important European Councils of recent years. { 48pp, 210x300mm, February 2005; PB, £6.50, 9077110070:9789077110072 , EuroComment } |
| DEMAGOGY OR SOUND MANAGEMENT? : Alternative Profiles of the UK Presidency of the European Union [Peter Ludlow] The six monthly presidencies of the European Union are increasingly important players in the politics of the Union. The UK Presidency in the second half of 2005 is nevertheless of special interest. Called upon to lead the Union only two weeks after the British government figured as a major protagonist in the breakdown of the EU budget negotiations, the Presidency will have to try to broker an agreement which is acceptable to the great majority of member states who believed a deal was possible in June, but which satisfies a domestic audience whose appetite for far reaching change has been aroused by the government’s rhetoric. Peter Ludlow attempts as always to place the challenges of the next six months in perspective. Most of what the UK Presidency will have to do arises from an agenda which it did not determine and much of which it cannot hope to finish in the short time it has at its disposal. With one of the better European civil services, the British will doubtless perform most of their tasks competently and unostentatiously. The juxtaposition of a relatively low-key agenda and the twin crises sparked by the breakdown over the budget and the negative referendum results in France and the Netherlands means however that there is an unusually high risk of demagogy. Objectively, the budgetary crisis could be settled with relative ease. Given the megaphone debate before and since the June European Council, however, low-key management of this particular problem is highly improbable. All the more so, because the UK Presidency has called at the same time for a ‘great debate’ about the future of Europe. While acknowledging the brilliance of Tony Blair’s speech to the European Parliament at the end of June, Peter Ludlow is nevertheless profoundly pessimistic about both the likely tone and the relevance of the great debate for which the British prime minister has called. Only a few months after the European Council signed off on a major overhaul of the Lisbon agenda, it is difficult to see what concretely can or should be done to enhance the Union’s main reform programme. It is also quite clear that even if the Tony Blair who spoke to the European Parliament is the ‘real’ Tony Blair, his underlying convictions are poles apart from those of Gordon Brown, his successor in waiting. Finally, despite the prospect of a new government in Germany, the chances of building a new consensus of the kind that re launched the European Community in 1984-1985 before a change of government in France are exceedingly slim. It would be splendid if after eight disappointing years, New Labour could begin to play a serious role at the heart of Europe. The prospects for a happy ending in December are however slight while the dangers of a serious and acrimonious rift between the UK and its EU partners are considerable. { 40pp, 210x295mm, July 2005; PB, £6.50, 9077110119:9789077110119 , EuroComment } |
| ECONOMIC GOVERNANCE IN THE EUROPEAN UNION : The Spring European Council of 2005 [Peter Ludlow] Like all European Councils in the post-Seville era, the Spring European Council of 2005 began long before the heads of government and state assembled in Brussels on 22 March. A substantial part of Peter Ludlow’s paper is therefore devoted to the preliminaries. The four major themes of the meeting were: reform of the stability and growth pact: the overhaul of the Lisbon strategy, sustainable development and climate change. Drawing on sources beyond as well as in the public domain, Ludlow analyses the making of the Conclusions against the background of lively and at times heated debate in the Council and noisy protests on the streets. Its principal focus is as usual on the Presidency, currently held by Luxembourg. In an opening section, Ludlow places the events of the past few months in a broad historical and conceptual framework. The agreements that were eventually arrived at in Ecofin and the European Council are undoubtedly flawed. This is not however particularly surprising, given the complex balance between centralised and decentralised decision-making required by the treaties. The shrill, tabloid-style articles that appeared in supposedly serious newspapers proclaiming the death of both the stability and growth pact and the Lisbon strategy are therefore entirely inappropriate. The changes to both the pact and the strategy that were agreed by the Spring Council improved both. In a system in which the pace of all is heavily conditioned by the speed of the larger states, there can however be no major advance until the governments of Germany and France are willing and able to carry out the economic reforms that both so obviously need. The EU, working through the revamped Lisbon process and by other means, can apply pressure. The vital decisions can only however be taken in Berlin and Paris. { 44pp, 210x300mm, May 2005; PB, £6.50, 9077110100:9789077110102 , EuroComment } |
| EU & CHINA [Peter Ludlow (ed)] This book is the second to be published by the European Strategy Forum. Based on a conference on the EU and China, which the Forum organised in Ponte de Lima in May 2007, it consists of seven substantial essays on key aspects of EU-Chinese relations. As Peter Ludlow writes in the introductory chapter, relations between the EU and China have changed, are changing and will continue to change at an extraordinary speed. It is therefore difficult to keep up to date. This book, which covers trade, environmental policy, science and technology, energy, Africa, and the roles of the EU and China in the global system, will nevertheless help policy-makers, academic experts, the business community and informed citizens to focus on the most important underlying trends and challenges. { 136pp, 160x240mm, October 2007; PB, £14.00, 9899535710:9789899535718 , EuroComment } |
| FRAGMENTED POWER : Europe & the Global Economy [André Sapir (ed)] The European Union is the world's largest economic entity, with half a billion people and a gross domestic product slightly larger than the United States. It is the largest exporter, the largest foreign aid donor, the largest source of foreign investment, and a magnet for migrants. But its decision-making powers are often fragmented and ineffective. To date there has been no comprehensive study of European international economic relations. This book fills that gap. It examines the main areas of Europe's foreign economic policy: trade, development, external competition policy, migration, and external energy/environment policy. This book explains why it is time for the EU to wake up to its global responsibilities, and why, in the absence of reform of its governance system, Europe risks remaining a fragmented power. { 334pp, 160x225mm, November 2007; PB, £19.00, 9078910046:9789078910046 , EuroComment } |
| LAEKEN COUNCIL [Peter Ludlow] This is the first book in a series of commentaries on every meeting of the European Council. Based on extensive unpublished and unattributable sources, it gives a unique insight into how the EU works and how it affects the lives of all EU citizens. { 243pp, 185x245mm, December 2002; PB, £19.99, 9077110011:9789077110010 , EuroComment } |
| LEADERSHIP IN AN ENLARGED EUROPEAN UNION : The European Council, the Presidency & the Commission [Peter Ludlow] Peter Ludlow’s latest Briefing Note is concerned with the structure of leadership in the European Union. As Jean Monnet observed, ‘nothing is possible without men, nothing is lasting without institutions’. During the past thirty or forty years, the EU has developed a remarkably effective system of collective leadership in and through the European Council which has continued to facilitate the integration process, despite radical changes in the size and character of the EU itself and the emergence of a generation of leaders whose most prominent figures bear little comparison with their predecessors. The first two sections of the paper analyse how and why the system emerged and flourished. The Dutch and French referenda must however be seen in part at least as a protest against this system. Representing as its members do both the peoples and states of the European Union, the European Council’s legitimacy is not in question. To be as effective in the future as it has been in the past, it must however become more accountable to those in a position to scrutinise and if necessary discipline its members. This means in the first instance national parliaments and citizens rather than the European Parliament. The constitutional treaty, which must now be presumed dead, had remarkably little of use to say on these matters, largely because MEPs and national parliamentarians in the Convention, either would not or did not acknowledge the European Council’s status as ‘the highest authority in the Union’. One of the positive features of the present crisis is therefore that it offers a fresh opportunity to find pragmatic, but at the same time radical solutions to fundamental problems which EU orthodoxy has obscured for far too long. { 44pp, 210x300mm, May 2005; PB, £6.50, 9077110097:9789077110096 , EuroComment } |
| MAKING OF THE NEW EUROPE : The European Councils in Brussels & Copenhagen 2002 [Peter Ludlow] The European Councils in Brussels and Copenhagen in the second half of 2002 culminated in the decision to admit ten new members to the European Union from Central and Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean in May 2004. The story involves a large cast of actors from inside and outside the Union. The central players are, however, the Danish Presidency, the Commission and the heads of state or government in the member states. The issues at stake included money, the future of the Common Agricultural Policy, Europe's Security and Defence Policy on the eve of the Iraq war, and, by no means least, a growing struggle for power in the Union amongst the larger member states and between the small and the large. { 390pp, 185x245mm, July 2004; PB, £36.00, 9077110046:9789077110041 , EuroComment } |
| ONE UNION, MANY VOICES : The EU Meets the People [Anders Samuelsen (ed)] France and the Netherlands voted ‘no’ to the constitutional treaty. But why? And why did every other country say ‘yes’, with or without a referendum? Why didn’t all EU countries plan to hold referendums? And what of the future of the EU? The aim of this book is to answer these and other questions. Fifteen of Europe’s most competent analysts have written a chapter for Anders Samuelsen, The Danish Social Liberal member of the European Parliament, from the perspective of each their countries. They are analysts who normally write for papers such as Le Monde, The Financial Times, El País, Politiken, Corriere Della Sera, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and The Guardian, just to mention a few. Based on the articles and his own experiences, Anders Samuelsen points out similarities and differences across the countries and outlines a possible way forward. { 146pp, 160x240mm, October 2005; PB, £10.50, 908101031X:9789081010313 , EuroComment } |
| ROMANIA: FOR EXPORT ONLY : The Untold Story of the Romanian 'Orphans' [Roelie Post] Romania needed to reform its child rights policy, as one of the conditions for its future EU Membership. Large 'orphanages' were closed and replaced by modern child protection alternatives. The author kept a diary on her work for the European Commission that aimed to help Romania reform its child protection. She soon found out that the intercountry adoption system in place was nothing short of a market for children, riddled by corruption. After international criticism this practice was halted temporarily. When redrafting laws, it became clear that in Romania's reformed child protection there was neither place nor need for intercountry adoptions. A ferocious lobby that wants to maintain intercountry adoptions stepped out. The reader is taken along on an eight-year-travel, and will be shown the story of the Romanian 'orphans' from a different light, where global politics and private interests compete with the rights of the child. REVIEW: "This is a shocking and forensic case history of how the lobbying nexus can work in Brussels, threats and all, as children's lives are cynically disposed of between the 'In' files and the 'Out'. Few players emerge well from this story and some are out-and-out black hat villains. A salutary antidote to the EU's 50th anniversary celebrations." -- David Haworth, Irish Daily Mail. { 270pp, 155x230mm, May 2007; PB, £16.00, 907882901X:9789078829010 , Eurocomment } |
| SETTING EU PRIORITIES 2007 [Peter Ludlow (ed)] Consists of five substantial papers based on the European Strategy Forum’s first meeting, in Ponte de Lima, Portugal. The topics covered are: The State of the Union at the beginning of 2007, EU Energy Policy, Reform of the EU Budget, European Security and Defence Policy and the Future of the Constitutional Treaty. Published on the eve of the special European Council in Berlin to celebrate the 50th anniversary and at a critical moment in the debate about the future of the Constitutional Treaty, the essay by Jacques Keller-Noellet and Guy Milton of the Council Secretariat on the prospects for constitutional reform is likely to be of particular interest. The papers are aimed in the first instance at policy makers in the EU institutions and member state governments. They should also be of considerable interest however to anybody who wishes to keep abreast of the EU policy debate. { 116pp, 155x230mm, April 2007; PB, £14.00, 9899535702:9789899535701 , Eurocomment } |
| SEVILLE COUNCIL [Peter Ludlow] This is the third volume in a new series of commentaries on every meeting of the European Council. Based on extensive unpublished and unattributable sources, it gives a unique insight into how the EU works and how it affects the lives of all EU citizens. { 195pp, 185x245mm, December 2002; PB, £19.99, 9077110038:9789077110034 , EuroComment } |