| Review of: | Britain, Germany and the Future of the European Union by C. Schweiger |
|---|---|
| Reviewed By: | Wolfram Kaiser |
| Reviewed in: | Journal of Common Market Studies |
| Date accepted online: | 10/04/2008 |
| Published in print: | Volume 45, Issue 05, Pages 1159-1167 |
Book Reviews
British Prime Ministers since Harold Macmillan have repeatedly dreamed of forging an alliance with Germany to turn the current EU into an institutionally loose, but efficient predominantly inter-governmental organization with the primary objective of economic and trade liberalization. In this book, Christian Schweiger seeks to explain why they never succeeded, but also why in his view it would be good for both partners and for the EU if they were able to construct such an alliance in the future. The first three chapters deal in a reliable, but cursory way in 80 pages with the foundations and evolution of Britain's and Germany's European policies since the Second World War. The fourth chapter proceeds to test five policy areas for barriers to, and potential for, greater Anglo-German co-operation in the EU: institutional reform, economic and monetary union, economic reform, foreign policy and enlargement. It is based on an analysis of British and German European policies under Prime Minister Tony Blair in Britain and the Red-Green coalition under Chancellor Gerhard Schröder in Germany. Chapter 5 gives an outlook on the significance of Anglo-German co-operation for the future of the EU.
This book is mainly useful as a concise update on British and German European policy and the bilateral relationship over EU issues in the last ten years. However, like so much work on national European policies, it is heavily under-conceptualized and very descriptive, with its habitual use of 'realist' terminology like 'national interests' or when the author invests countries with agency ('Britain has shed [...] resentments' - p. 174) without specifying actors. Unfortunately, in line with what the RAE appears to have encouraged, the research basis for this book is also very slim. It relies almost exclusively on published sources like speeches and party policy papers with only eight interviews with marginal politicians with their own (Anglo-German) agendas, but little to no influence on national European policy-making. Clearly informed by his own personal experience of living in Britain (p. ix), moreover, the author's analysis is too driven by his own normative desire for fuller British integration within the EU and closer Anglo-German co-operation. Despite recognizing persisting structural barriers to such a development, he gets overly exited about the 'golden opportunity' (p. 176) of what may well seem retrospectively as empty as Blair's rhetoric and Schröder's nationalist opportunism.