EUROPE : COMMUNITY OR EMPIRE? (Europa: Gemeinschaft oder Reich?)

Summary

• PREFACE
• THE COMMUNITY AT A CROSSROADS
  • Back to the community school
  • The age of the builders
  • Community or empire: it is up to the European citizen to decide!
• COMMUNITY OR EUROPE?
  • Europe and the European Community since the fall of the Iron Curtain
    • What is Europe?
    • Europe, a moving horizon
    • Europe is not the Community
    • What is the Community?
  • Principles for the functioning of the Community
    • Democratic constraint and political method.
    • Respect for diversity as a democratic constraint
    • 1990: Suddenly the Community leaves its laboratory
    • Maastricht: When the administrations alone hold the command
    • The Return of the Demons
    • Poor interpretation of principles and ignorance of constraints
• THE EMPIRE IS BEING INSTALLED – A European Community inadequate for the 21st century
  • A Community under the monopoly of archaic elites
    • The Community imposture of the national political classes
    • When the valets replace the masters
    • The Lobbyist, the Canada Dry of the European Civil Service
    • Private Partners, or how to swing from Operationalto Decision-Making
  • The Divorce between the Community and the Public Opinions
    • Disregard for democracy and no more respect for diversity
    • A Community created by States on behalf of the people. Is it, really?
    • The subsidiarity concept: forgetting the respect for diversity, or how to feed the fear of the Community
    • Plurality, Diversity, Unity…
  • The increasing inefficiency of the modes of decision-making and operation within the European Community
    • Irresponsibility under influences
    • Community inertia and methodological conservatism
• FACING THE YEAR 2000 WITH AN OUTDATED EUROPEAN COMMISSION
  • The European Commission, a hybrid of French centralism and German bureaucracy
    • Administrative archaism
    • Shortage of staff, poor allocation of human resources and inadequate recruitment
    • Outdated methodologies, which lack transparency and flexibility
  • The four main functions of the European Commission: normative, distributive, stimulative, representative
    • The normative function
    • The distributive function
    • The stimulative function
    • The representative function
    • The representative function of the Community and the ability to forecast
    • Happy with the communication?