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This paper deals with a series of legal cases in Italy, Germany, and Austria, between September 2019 and December 2020, which ruled that laws prohibiting or restricting assistance in suicide were unconstitutional. There are similarities between these three cases, all of which are influenced by the practice of assisted suicide in Switzerland, but also differences, not least because of the antecedent legal contexts. Each case is based on flawed reasoning. They have in common an exaggerated account of autonomy or self-determination, insufficiently qualified by the duty to protect human life or by other ethical constraints. The Italian and Austrian Courts also appeal to the principle of equality and to a supposed analogy with refusal of life-sustaining treatments, both of which raise concerns in relation to further expansion of the provisions. In responding to these flawed judgements, legislators should favour proposals that prevent the normalisation of assisted and non-assisted suicide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the experiences of children of immigrants coming to Italy from Turkey. It does so by using in-depth interviews and looking at how they conceptualize their sense of belonging to their home country and the transnational ties that they maintain in relation to their parents' experience. The participants in this research grew up in families whose intention was not to remain in Italy but to continue their journey to Germany. Like their parents, the second-generation members also want to build their lives in Germany, however, the meaning attributed to this place is very different. For these young people, Germany and its diasporas offer a source of identity. Put otherwise, in addition to what Germany can offer in terms of services and economic opportunities, they are also attracted to what diasporas can offer: being Turks and Kurds in Germany. By allowing them to reconnect with the cultural memories of their homeland and enjoy the opportunities and rights offered by a developed country, Germany becomes a diasporic homeland in which to plan a future, a place where, to quote one of them, "one feels at home in the heart of Europe". The idea of a homeland, then, is not only transformed – it is duplicated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Evidence shows that territorial borders continue to have an impact on research collaboration in Europe. Knowledge of national research structural contexts is therefore crucial to the promotion of Europe-wide policies for research funding. Nevertheless, studies assessing and comparing research systems remain scarce. This paper aims to further the knowledge on national research landscapes in Europe, focusing on non-communicable disease (NCD) research in Italy and Germany.Methods: To capture the architecture of country-specific research funding systems, a three-fold strategy was adopted. First, a literature review was conducted to determine a list of key public, voluntary/private non-profit and commercial research funding organisations (RFOs). Second, an electronic survey was administered qualifying RFOs. Finally, survey results were integrated with semi-structured interviews with key opinion leaders in NCD research. Three major dimensions of interest were investigated - funding mechanisms, funding patterns and expectations regarding outputs.Results: The number of RFOs in Italy is four times larger than that in Germany and the Italian research system has more project funding instruments than the German system. Regarding the funding patterns towards NCD areas, in both countries, respiratory disease research resulted as the lowest funded, whereas cancer research was the target of most funding streams. The most reported expected outputs of funded research activity were scholarly publication of articles and reports.Conclusions: This cross-country comparison on the Italian and German research funding structures revealed substantial differences between the two systems. The current system is prone to duplicated research efforts, popular funding for some diseases and intransparency of research results. Future research will require addressing the need for better coordination of research funding efforts, even more so if European research efforts are to play a greater role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What explains regulators’ preferences concerning the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM)? The paper answers this question by providing an alternative account of the creation of the SSM using an institutionalist perspective. It is argued that the creation of the SSM does not simply reflect the material interests of governments and domestic financial firms, but that regulators’ positions were also significantly affected by the institutional environment in which they operated. Two characteristics of domestic supervisory governance are identified: the institutional responsibilities of banking regulators (microprudential and/or macroprudential) and the fragmentation of supervisory and monetary policies. The empirical analysis demonstrates the relevance of these factors for shaping regulators’ preferences both within and across countries. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper discusses the relationships between the migratory policies of the EU countries with more experience of immigration and their national political cultures. It focuses on France, Germany and the United Kingdom. It then looks at Italy, a relatively new country of immigration, which, with 3,000,000 legal immigrants, has become the fourth country of immigration in Europe and the first in the Mediterranean basin. In its final part it highlights the incipient process of 'communitarisation' of the immigration policies of EU countries in the last decade. This process, which has already entailed a significant convergence of their migratory policies, is expected to continue after the recent enlargement of the European Union. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The abstract presents results of the "InterQuality Project - International Research Project on Financing Quality in Healthcare" funded by the 7th Framework Programme (FP7) for Research and Technological Development of the European Union. Grant Agreement No: HEALTH-F3-2010-261369 Objective: To assess reliability, validity and completeness of data on pharmaceutical benefit financing components of health care in United States, United Kingdom, Denmark, Germany, Italy and Poland Theory: Information and guidance used by authorities for decision making in the financing of pharmaceutical care should be reliable, valid and complete. Methods: A systematic review of literature published in the last 10 years, found electronically in Medline, Embase, the Cochrane Library and SCOPUS, supplemented by a manual search, was conducted. Quality of publications was critically appraised using PRISMA [1], MOOSE [2] and STROBE [3] checklists. Contents of found literature were assessed in terms of consistency, coherence and strength. Results: In total, 439 full text publications were included, of which 198 papers were assessed for quality. Of these, 24,6%, 31,2% and 22,1% publications presented high levels of: consistency, coherence and strength, respectively, and 4,3% presented concurrently high levels of all assessed areas. Several areas of weak data availability were identified. Discussion: No comparable analyses were found. Credible data were often unavailable. A questionnaire and a template helpful to collect data where more information is needed were developed, validated and will be sent to experts from InterQuality Consortium countries. Conclusion: To improve the quality of information available to decision makers, so that it is more credible, multiple sources should be used. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]