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This paper offers the first literary-historical analysis of the book epigram in hexameters sealing the second recension of John Tzetzes’ Historiai. The book epigram belongs to a corpus of paratexts that, despite being edited by Giovanni Pietro Leone half a century ago, have received barely any attention. And yet, as we argue, they are crucial to understand how Tzetzes positioned the Historiai within his oeuvre, offering at the same time striking insights into the intellectual scene of 12th-century Constantinople. The hexametric book epigram, in particular, provides a key to read through the generic and rhetorical conventions of the Historiai, allowing the readers to “crack” their code and stressing the importance of humor and irony to read through Tzetzes’ own idiosyncratic expressive modules., Parekbolai. An Electronic Journal for Byzantine Literature, Vol 11 (2021)

Structural Reforms (SRs) are increasingly at the core of the European and national agenda. But what are SRs? And what are the main factors shaping their content? This analysis of the structural reforms adopted, between 2008 and 2015 in five European Union (EU) countries - the Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Ireland and Italy - allows us to address these two questions. The book proposes a new definition of SRs, combining supply-side and more demand-side policy measures. An analysis of the five countries under scrutiny shows how a combination of EU constraints and opportunities, domestic path-dependency and political dynamics has resulted in different structural reform trends: while some countries have experienced an overall devaluation in social standards (e.g. Ireland), others have pursued more mixed strategies. What is more, SRs have gone through different periods. After a first phase of anti-cyclical measures, austerity dominated between 2011 and 2013. In more recent years, many countries have followed a more pro-growth strategy. The book provides evidence that the EU influenced SRs but lacked a coherent agenda to support growth. In such a context, different countries implemented different reform strategies, reflecting their (partly) diverging socio-economic models.

In recent decades the European Union (EU) has put increased emphasis on education and training as a strategic area able to contribute to economic development and a more inclusive society. Soft governance has contributed to progress in attempts to coordinate national policies and institutions. However, national performances and trends are still far from the targets set by the EU. To explain this contradiction between EU ambitions and its limited influence on national performance, we look at the policy content of EU economic and social governance. The inconsistency between short-term fiscal consolidation and longterm social investment seems to be one of the sources of the contradiction Moreover, this inconsistency has become more acute since the ‘Great Recession’. If the EU wishes to make progress in this area, a more coherent set of incentives favouring long-term investments has to be implemented (through revision of the stability rules and/or using the EU structural funds to help Member States invest in this area).

Il pezzo analizza le dinamiche, gli strumenti e gli effetti della politica di integrazione europea in educazione e istruzione superiore

The present chapter provides an overview of structural reforms (SRs) - measures to improve economic growth prospects and the ability of economies to adjust to economic shocks - introduced in Europe between 1999 and 2012 and, in particular, during the Great Recession (2008-12). Such a cross-policy analysis - including social protection (e.g. pensions), education policy, R&D and public sector reforms - makes it possible to shed light on the complex interaction of the labour market policies, that are at the core of the volume, with social policies (aimed at welfare production and redistribution) and economic policies (aimed at economic production). While the concept of SRs is highly debated in the literature and needs some revision of its normative roots, we consider it a good descriptive tool: it helps to trace reform trends in a number of policy areas and to understand the overall functioning of a socio-economic system. The present chapter proposes a new typology of SRs for a more detailed analysis of SRs trends in Europe. Through the analysis of reforms between 1999 and 2012 we address two key questions: Is there a common reform trend of a ‘race to the bottom’ in relation to social and employment rights? What has been the impact of the Great Recession: Do we see overall continuity or a shift between the pre- and post-crisis? In the following we analyse five country clusters – Anglo-Saxon, Nordic, Continental European, Southern European and Visegrad countries that are consistent with the different varieties of capitalism and employment regimes – and we provide evidence of diverse reform trends over time. The present contribution is organised as follows. Section two presents the research questions at the core of the chapter and provides a brief review of the literature on socio-economic reforms in Europe over the last decades. Section three gives the definition of SRs and the complementarity between socio-economic policies before and since the Great Recession. Section four provides an overview of SRs in the EU with a focus on reform trends and outputs. Section five draws some conclusions.

In this chapter, we look at the most recent evolution of the complex interplay between EU and domestic policymakers. We refer to Europeanisation as the process of ‘domestic adaptation to European regional integration’. The chapter has both descriptive and analytical aims. It first maps the key European governance and policy instruments that have shaped welfare reforms in Italy since the 2000s. The composition of EU instruments has changed over time and, especially in the shadow of the crisis, new instruments have been added. We then refer to the channels whereby the influence – both direct and indirect – of the EU on the Italian welfare state has occurred. Then, we address the question of whether – and how – EU pressure has become greater, especially in the wake of the Great Recession and the Eurozone crisis.

Since the Lisbon Strategy of 2000, the EU has increasingly focused on education and training (ET) policies. The latter have been proposed as a key component of the European knowledge-based economic model. In parallel to this emphasis by the EU, there has been broad consensus among scholarly experts and analysts. Supporters of the supply-side economic paradigm stress that education and training are investments in human capital, and are thus a productive factor that improves competitiveness and boosts economic progress (see Kolev and Matthes 2013). Advocates of the alternative demand-side perspective have supported ET by claiming that increased spending in the field reduces inequalities among citizens and boosts domestic demand through the public budget (Bsirske and Busch 2013). Education and training are also at the core of the social investment paradigm that relies on investments, such as in human capital, to support labour market participation and to confront new social risks (Hemerijck 2013; Vandenbroucke and Vanhercke 2014). The key question we address in this chapter is: has this emphasis on education and training resulted in a coherent effort and investment in ET both at EU and national level?