Friday, March 14, 2014
Committee (Omni Shoreham)
Algeria is a natural entry point into the complexities of European legal and political integration. In the last years of his life, Camus witnessed France’s involvement in two very different ventures: on one hand, a long, violent and gruesome war aimed at preserving French rule in Algeria; on the other, a peace-driven project of rapprochement with France’s staunchest enemy, Germany, in the guise of an Economic Community of six European states. The fact that crucial to both projects was the same iconic character -- Charles de Gaulle – corroborates their historical twinship. Had Camus’s life not suddenly ended in 1960, he would have seen one of the two projects flounder, with Algeria proclaiming its independence in 1962, and the second project succeed well beyond the limits of de Gaulle’s vision. Camus would have also witnessed multiple moments of encounter between the history of post-colonial Algeria and the consolidation of the Community project, and perhaps would have asked what a united Europe could do to heal the wounds of the French-Algerian past. In the spirit of the centennial of Camus’s birth, this essay takes the lead from this unspoken question. A selection of cases and materials on immigration and trade law illustrates how different EU institutions have impacted the welfare of Algerian persons.
