This article illustrates and discusses some elements of the "problematique" 'Southern Europe'. The themes stressed include its configuration and the criteria for its conceptualisation. A number of ways to think about 'Southern Europe are discussed -- of course with particular emphasis on the development and theoretical elaboration of comparative education in these countries, as well as on the imbalances in the international debate. That debate is not merely contemporary: there are historical dynamics that have influenced the imbalances of power that were, and can now be, found in definitions of 'Europe' and what counted as its political, cultural, historical (and finally, economic) centre. These complex themes -- glossed over by hegemonic and ideological concepts such as the Global North and the Global South -- include the territorial articulations of 'Europe'; what counted and counts as 'its centre'; the construction of 'national states'; the changing valuations of 'the national'; and the vital question of language. Overall, the crucial motif of the article is the ways in which all these themes are refracted and reflected in changing versions of what counts as, what is constructed as, 'comparative education'.