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The aim of this paper is to investigate, from a generational perspective, the effect of human capital on individual earnings and earnings differences in Germany, France and Italy, three developed countries in Western Europe with similarconservativewelfare regimes but with important differences in their education systems. Income inequalitiesbetweenandwithineducation levels are explored using a two-stage probit model with quantile regressions in the second stage. More precisely, drawing upon 2005 EU-SILC data, returns on schooling and experience are estimated separately for employees and self-employed full-time workers by means of Mincerian earnings equations with sample selection; the sample selection correction accounts for the potential individual self-selection into the two labour force types. Although some determinants appear to be relatively similar across countries, state-specific differentials are drawn in light of the institutional features of each national context. The study reveals how each dimension of human capital differently affects individuals’ earnings and earnings inequality and, most of all, how their impacts differ along the conditional earnings distribution and across countries. In the comparative perspective, the country's leading position in terms of the highest rewards on education also depends on which earnings distribution (employee vs. self-employed) is analysed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article analyses press coverage between July and October 2010 in three different European Union (EU) member states (France, Romania and Bulgaria) of the French government's expulsion of Roma in 2010. It asks what the international reaction to France's actions tells us about the way in which Europe is deployed in debates over discrimination, minority rights and freedom of movement in national media. The article finds evidence in national public debates of a Europeanisation of normative discussions, thanks to a willingness by a range of actors to use the EU in an instrumental way for political gain. However, the representation of issues and actors by the press also demonstrates the ways in which the prominence of supposedly European norms, and the framing of the EU's role, can be associated with national political dynamics, both in relation to the political environment and contemporary narratives regarding national identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

France traditionally attempted to achieve its national objectives via the medium of European integration by means of a strategy of playing a leading role in shaping institutional and policy developments at the European level. Behind this strategy lay a tension between a desire for a strong Europe and an unwillingness to cede national autonomy to European institutions. However, at least until the end of the 1980s, this tension was successfully ignored and France's European policy proved to be relatively successful. Since that time, however, increasing pressures have brought this tension to the fore. Faced with a need to respond to altered circumstances within the European Union (EU), President Chirac has responded uncertainly. As a result, and for the first time since the 1940s, France faces the prospect of losing the leading role it has traditionally played within European integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article assesses the impact of three distinct types of pressure for regulatory change on the two contrasting sectors of legal and medical service provision. These have been driven by both regional and global integration processes. The article focuses on the distinctive forms of regulatory competition which have developed at the European level, within the framework of a highly managed system of mutual recognition, and on the very different strategies for managing regulatory reform at the national level which have developed in two of the larger member states of the European Union (EU): France and Britain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]