Can Italy and Germany thrive within the confines of the common currency, or do they display two fundamentally incompatible models? This book examines this question by means of detailed comparisons in the fields of labour market policies, welfare provisions and financial and economic management, since the onset of the financial crisis and through the euro and COVID-19 crises. The rapid succession of the financial crisis, the Eurozone crisis and COVID-19 have again brought to the fore questions that have beset European integration since its inception; does the EU promote convergence or divergence? Have these crises served to reveal pre-existing politico-economic incompatibilities or were these incompatibilities created by the euro and the measures propounded by the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU)? Should EMU recipes be followed, or should they be fundamentally revised in an effort to come good on the convergence promises underpinning the European project? And, lastly, is the COVID-19 crisis likely to mitigate or exacerbate these problems? These questions are addressed in this volume by means of a tight comparison between Germany and Italy, two countries that have displayed strikingly divergent trajectories but also share many more politico-economic traits than the conventional wisdom would allow for. By exploring in detail how the main elements of the euro and EMU management have played out, the volume highlights the externalities that becoming part of a currency union has created and that strengthened the economic success of one while consolidating the decline of the other and analyses the likely impact of the measures introduced to fight the economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the journal, German Politics.

Good Neighbourliness in the European Legal Context provides the first detailed assessment of the essence and application of the principle of good neighbourly relations in the European legal context, illustrating its findings by a multi-faceted array of studies dedicated to the functioning of good neighbourly relations in a number of key fields of EU law. The main claim put forward in this book is that the principle of good neighbourly relations came to occupy a vital place in the Europan legal context, underpinning the very essence of the integration exercise.

Against the backdrop of a more differentiated European Union, this book discusses the relationship between differentiation and domination in the EU in relation to how it has been transformed through the financial and refugee crises, the COVID-19 pandemic, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and in general, a more volatile and less rule-bound global context. In doing so, it assesses to what extent these adaptations represent significant change, generating new problems and challenges, or on the other hand, providing an opportunity for new solutions or even signalling a new approach to governance that can mitigate problems associated with domination. Differentiation is discussed not only from a legal perspective, but with special attention to structural and institutional arrangements, which includes patterns of path dependence and built-in biases. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of public sector crisis management, international organisations, and EU politics and studies.

Applying the demand-led growth models framework, this book examines the recent macroeconomic performance of the key Mediterranean economies – Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece – including the responses to the economic and financial crisis (2008), the debt crisis (2010) and the COVID-19 crisis (2020). As the book explains, the central idea of the growth model approach is that the widespread breakdown of the old labor institutions, such as the existence of strong unions, centralized wage bargaining and the participation of the workforce in corporate governance, has led to a fall in the wage share and a rise in inequality in most advanced economies. Thus, the two main contemporary growth models are usually characterized as debt-led and export-led. In both models, the same processes that cumulatively drive growth, such as over-consumption, also simultaneously undermine the foundations on which this expansion takes hold. The book examines the extent to which these processes hold true for Mediterranean economics and explores the key factors of their economies including productive capacity, growth of aggregate demand components, wage-led or profit-led regimes, personal income distribution, the foreign sector, the financial sector, labor relations, the labor market and welfare states. In particular, the book examines whether policy responses and state interventions in recent years have led to a divergence between the economies. To what extent are these changes transforming the existing growth models? Are we facing a change in the Mediterranean model or the disappearance of the Mediterranean bloc as a whole? This book marks a significant addition to the literature on the economics and politics of Southern Europe and the fields of political economy, comparative economics, and macroeconomics more broadly.

Developments in European Politics considers what Europe is, where it came from, and what European citizens can make of it. It brings together specially commissioned chapters by leading authorities to give an up-to-date and systematic analysis of European political developments – in institutions, processes and policy – at national, regional and international levels. It provides wide-ranging and clear analysis of the factors influencing European politics, from populism and extremism in national politics to the broader forces of globalization, immigration, climate change and international terrorism. Bringing together a brand new contributor team, this new edition offers: - More coverage of Europe's role in the world - Increased focus on the attitudes of European citizens as the motor of European politics - End of chapter reading suggestions and key questions, enabling readers to engage with the important issues at stake - An overarching framework that hones in on four contemporary themes: the rise of authoritarian politics, the mismanagement of globalization, the perception of collective insecurity, and the disintegration of Europe. This is an ideal text for students undertaking courses on European Politics, as well as anyone interested in understanding the political challenges facing Europe today.

Danubian Europe presented constant and serious security risks for European peace and stability and, for that reason, contrary to conventional wisdom, it commanded the attention of British diplomacy with a view to appeasing local conflicts. Britain and Interwar Danubian Europe examines the manner in which the Foreign Office perceived and treated the antagonism between the Little Entente, comprised of Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Romania, and Hungary, on the one hand, and revisionist Bulgaria and her neighbours in the Balkans, on the other, and the impact that these local conflicts had in connection with Franco-Italian rivalry in Central/South-Eastern Europe. With Hitler's accession to power, Danubian Europe was viewed in Whitehall in relation to its place in the prospective policy for preserving Austrian independence and containing German aggression. Dragan Bakic argues that the British approach to security problems in Danubian Europe had certain permanent features which stemmed from the general British outlook on the new successor states -the members of the Little Entente- founded on the ruins of the Habsburg monarchy. This book shows that it was the lack of confidence in their stability and permanence, as well as the misperceptions about the motives and intentions of the policies pursued by other Powers towards Central/South-Eastern Europe, which accounted for the apparent sluggishness and ineffectiveness of the Foreign Office's dealings with security challenges. Based on extensive, original archival research, this is a fascinating volume for any historian keen to know more about the 20th-century history of East-Central Europe or British foreign policy in the interwar years.

How philosophical differences between Eurozone nations led to the Euro crisis—and where to go from here Why is Europe's great monetary endeavor, the Euro, in trouble? A string of economic difficulties in Greece, Ireland, Spain, Italy, and other Eurozone nations has left observers wondering whether the currency union can survive. In this book, Markus Brunnermeier, Harold James, and Jean-Pierre Landau argue that the core problem with the Euro lies in the philosophical differences between the founding countries of the Eurozone, particularly Germany and France. But the authors also show how these seemingly incompatible differences can be reconciled to ensure Europe’s survival. As the authors demonstrate, Germany, a federal state with strong regional governments, saw the Maastricht Treaty, the framework for the Euro, as a set of rules. France, on the other hand, with a more centralized system of government, saw the framework as flexible, to be overseen by governments. The authors discuss how the troubles faced by the Euro have led its member states to focus on national, as opposed to collective, responses, a reaction explained by the resurgence of the battle of economic ideas: rules vs. discretion, liability vs. solidarity, solvency vs. liquidity, austerity vs. stimulus. Weaving together economic analysis and historical reflection, The Euro and the Battle of Ideas provides a forensic investigation and a road map for Europe’s future.

Bert Van Roosebeke analyses non-contractual state liability in the European Union. He explains differences in member states’ breaching behaviour and presents the state liability doctrine as developed by the European Court of Justice in a number of cases. He shows that compliance is the true economic aim of state liability legislation and presents a comparative analysis of the effectiveness of both private and public law enforcement mechanisms. He finally formulates improvements to the rules of state liability.

This study explores the following puzzle: Upon national unification, why was Germany formed as a federal state and Italy a unitary state? Ziblatt's answer to this question will be of interest to scholars of international relations, comparative politics, political development, and political and economic history.

Alexander treats sympathetically writers like Kovner and Appelfeld who integrated the European tragedy into the Israeli imagination, but charges that some Israeli dramatists have perpetrated travesties of the Holocaust that resemble antisemetic polemics