The aim of this paper is to characterize the spatio-temporal distribution of
Central-Europe seismicity. Specifically, by using a non-parametric statistical
approach, the proportional hazard model, leading to an empirical estimation
of the hazard function, we provide some constrains on the time behavior of
earthquake generation mechanisms. The results indicate that the most conspic-
uous characteristics of MW 4.0+ earthquakes is a temporal clustering lasting
a couple of years. This suggests that the probability of occurrence increases
immediately after a previous event. After a few years, the process becomes
almost time independent. Furthermore, we investigate the cluster properties
of the seismicity of Central-Europe, by comparing the obtained result with the
one of synthetic catalogs generated by the epidemic type aftershock sequences
(ETAS) model, which previously have been successfully applied for short term
clustering. Our results indicate that the ETAS is not well suited to describe
the seismicity as a whole, while it is able to capture the features of the short-
term behaviour. Remarkably, similar results have been previously found for
Italy using a higher magnitude threshold
