Supiot, Alain --- "Conclusion: ‘Europe’s Awakening’" [2011] ELECD 898; in Moreau, Marie-Ange (ed), "Before and After the Economic Crisis" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2011)

Book Title: Before and After the Economic Crisis

Editor(s): Moreau, Marie-Ange

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781849809924

Section: Chapter 19

Section Title: Conclusion: ‘Europe’s Awakening’

Author(s): Supiot, Alain

Number of pages: 19

Extract:

19. Conclusion: Europe's awakening
Alain Supiot

Kant explains that it is the reading of Hume which drew him out of his
dogmatic sleep.1 This famous statement suffices to remind us that the most
invaluable resources of Europe are not in the vaults of the banks, but in
the minds of its citizens, who think in several languages2 and converse
beyond the borders. Brian Bercusson and Iota Kravaritou belonged to
those European citizens, whose thoughts were directed at how to take
Europe out of the dogmatic sleep into which it is falling again. They both
left us in 2008, after years of tireless work devoted to the building of a
more humane and more supportive Europe. The year of 2008 was also
a year of the unprecedented disruption in the building of the so-called
`social Europe'. In fact, the disruption was double. First, the European
Court of Justice withdrew from the promise contained in the Treaty of
Rome of improving `living and working conditions, so as to make possible
their harmonization, while the improvement is being maintained',3 and
switched to ultra-liberal ideology dismantling social rights. The second
was the ideological and financial failure of this ultra-liberal doctrine.
It is between these two events, on 26 February, that I met Brian
Bercusson for the last time. It was in Paris where Brian had come to teach
for a few weeks. Our conversation was largely focused on the Viking and
Laval judgments, which the Court of Justice ...