journal of european integration history revue d'histoire de l ...

136Book reviews – Comptes rendus – Buchbesprechungenview is to be understood in connection with their technical approach of the managementplan for the agricultural common market and its accompanying measures (pp.136-152) thatminimize the study of further finalities. From the beginning of the 90ies, such finalities arealready consistent with the concept of economic and social cohesion and are materialized byagro-environmental considerations and the introduction of new principles, in this case foodquality and safety. Ledent and Burny mention them but are interested above all in theinstruments of agricultural production and expenditure control.Only from page 441 onwards, they think it necessary to put the evolution of the CAP intocontext with the general economic evolution and analyze the CAP’s integration into marketeconomy considering the expectations of society. They then draw up a table that provideselements to consider for a debate, in particular on the concept of “viable and durable familyholdings”. But they don’t give their view on the “European model of agriculture” which is centralto the preoccupations of the Union of the Fifteen at the time of the discussions opened at WTOlevel. Moreover, emphasis is put too briefly on an internal view of the constitution of a “greenEurope”, merely speaking of “the rural development and/or agricultural development”.Thus this book is an interesting contribution to a better knowledge of the CAP, above allof its commercial pillar. From a scientific point of view, it doesn’t replace the work of theeconomist Rosemary Fennell, which is based on a more substantiar literature and refers toofficial documents of the European institutions, particularly of the Commission, aiming fora more historical approach of the creation of the CAP. 4 Burny’s and Ledent’s approachdoesn’t allow to consider their publication as a reference work for understanding the historyof the constitution of a European agricultural and rural community.However it is an excellent, well-documented dossier, with boxes and interestingsummaries, which presents the “standard” evolution of the CAP without really tackling thebasic problems. It is particularly symptomatic to note that according to its authors, the CAPis not the result either of compromise decisions reached in Brussels by a Council ofministers, or of a power struggle with national and European pressure groups. And, for thehistorian as well as for the political scientist identifying the CAP with the constitution of acommon agricultural market is greatly outdated insofar as, for the 3d millennium, theobjective is to create a green Europe, i.e. an agricultural and rural Europe, not a commercialEurope but a Europe of economic and social cohesion. The authors neglect the fact that thefuture prospects consider no longer an agricultural Europe but the development of ruralterritories for the benefit of the whole society and not for agricultural producers alone.Gilbert NoëlUniversity of Artois (Arras)Institute for European studies (Louvain-la-Neuve)Daniela PREDA, Guido LEVI (eds.), L’europeismo in Liguria. Dal Risorgimento allanascita dell’Europa comunitaria, Il Mulino, Bologna, 2002, 474 p. - ISBN 88-15-08980-2– 32,59 €.This collection of essays, edited from pp.7-237 by Daniela Preda, and from pp.239-473 byGuido Levi, constitutes an account of the proceedings of a convention of studies onEuropeanism, organised at Genoa in October 2001 by the Department of European Researchof the University of Genoa in collaboration with the European Pole Jean Monnet, which wassponsored by the Municipality and Provinces of Genoa and Liguria and the Centro4. R. FENNELL, The Common Agricultural Policy: Continuity and Change, Clarendon Press, Oxford,1997.