Wednesday, March 22, 2006

last chanceeeeeeeee

Hi everybody!
I see many things are moving these days.. So just to add one more: April will be your last chance to visit Milan with free accomodation and city guide. I am moving back to Spain in May! Val's blog about our generation was the last drop that made me take the decision. ;)
I wanted to come back with a new job in my pocket but nothing is sure yet, I am waiting for the answer of a consultancy. However, I got fed up and felt that had to make a move since my job here is getting too boring and the possibility of getting a possition in EIPA Barcelona was too small. And no way I spend another June with the Milanese mosquitos!!!!!! So I may take a month off to visit some of you in the meantime!
So wish me luck, friends! And don't tell I am cazy for leaving a well paid job in the public administration, I heard that too many times already, and I know it!
However I gave myself a deadline (4 months) and if by then I am not happy with my professional life I will start looking for something in Brussels or maybe London. And my boyfriend will come with me, what makes things nicer.
So if any of you wants to visit Spain this summer, you are all welcome!
Big kiss, take care!

Sunday, March 19, 2006

Next PubAffairs Event, March 22nd

Dear EPAists (especially those from Brussels),

Let me introduce you to PubAffairs, a professional network with members from across the range of lobbying/consulting activities in Brussels (in-house, consultancies, regions and trade associations) as well as from the EU institutions, Member States, press and academia...

PubAffairs is the network for the Brussels based EU public policy community, drawing its members from the EU institutions, journalists, think-tanks, trade federations and policy consultants.

PubAffairs organizes monthly meeting of its members at various pubs in Brussels (mostly around Place Luxembourg). To find out more or to join the e-mail network visit www.pubaffairs.org or send an email to PubAffairs-Brussels@brutele.be

The next PubAffairs Brussels event on Wednesday March 22nd, at Deep Fusion - just next to Place Luxembourg by the European Parliament.

Florina Laura Neculai has kindly accepted our invitation to attend the PubAffairs event on 22 March in order to speak about the book she has just published « What Would a Federal Europe Look Like? ». This essay, targeted at people aged 15-30, was financed by the European Commission Youth Programme and was welcomed by Prof. Giuliano AMATO (former Vice-President of the European Convention) among other famous names. Florina is Romanian and is currently doing a doctorship at the Catholic University of Leuven. The book can be downloaded in 13 languages on the Union of European Federalists (UEF) on http://web0.p15150546.pureserver.info/index.php?id=3905

Florina will also bring a few copies of her book that she will sign on March 22nd. Enjoy the reading and do not hesitate to send your comments to the author on bookonfederalism@yahoo.com

Appetisers will be provided by Deep Fusion and we kick off at 18h30, Rue d'Idalie 6 (http://www.deepfusion.be).

To join this event, please send your RSVP to PubAffairs-Brussels@brutele.be.

Let me know if you plan to go so that we can organize together our EPA representation.

Europe United

Dear EPAists,

I forward you an email received from Michele Bondesan, an Italian member of a newly created pan-European political party. Europe United's goal is to create a united federal Europe. Below is the message I received. If you feel you belong to this party's ideals you are welcome to join it.

Do you believe that Europe should have a vision, - a forceful, ambitious and optimistic vision? A vision of a Europe, which has a dynamic economy, cleanest environment, best education, common defence, front line science, grandest culture and which commands respect around the world. If yes, we want you to become member of Europe United at:

www.europeunited.org

Europe United is a new pro-European and European-wide political party which advocates for further integration and establishment of a United Europe.

Thursday, March 16, 2006

To The Netherlands!

Dutch immigration kit offers revealing view
By Gregory Crouch The New York Times
THURSDAY, MARCH 16, 2006


NIJMEGEN, the Netherlands This is not exactly a run-of-the-mill homework assignment: watch a film clip of an attractive woman sunbathing topless and try not to be shocked.

"People do not make a fuss about nudity," the narrator explains.

That lesson, about the Netherlands' nude beaches, is followed by another: homosexuals have the same rights here as heterosexuals do, including the chance to marry.

Just to make sure everyone gets the message, two men are shown kissing in a meadow.

The scenes are brief parts of a two- hour film the Dutch government has compiled to help potential immigrants, many of them from Islamic countries, meet the demands of a new entrance examination that went into effect Wednesday. In the exam, candidates must prove they can speak some Dutch and are at least aware of the Netherlands' liberal values, even if they do not agree with all of them.

Opponents of the tightening immigration policies have pointed to the film - a DVD contained in a package of study materials for the new exam - as an attempt by the government to discourage applicants from Islamic countries who may be offended by its content.

Dutch politicians and immigration officials have dismissed those accusations, saying that the film, blandly titled "To The Netherlands," is a study aid that will give potential immigrants an honest look at the way life is lived here.

"The film is meant for people not yet in Holland to take note that this is normal here and not be shocked and awed by it once they arrive," said Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali-born member of the Dutch Parliament.

But Abdou Menebhi, chairman of Emcemo, a Moroccan interest group in Amsterdam, said the film was just another example of how the Netherlands was trying to limit immigration from Muslim countries.

"This isn't education, it's provocation," Menebhi said. "The new law has one goal: to stop the flow of immigrants, especially by Muslims from countries like Morocco and Turkey."

Citizens of some countries, in fact, are exempt from the examination, including those from the United States and European Union nations.

The Netherlands now has some of the strictest immigration policies in Europe, drafted in part during a period of rising societal tension after the killings of Pim Fortuyn, the anti-immigrant politician, and Theo van Gogh, the filmmaker who with Hirsi Ali made a movie critical of Islam.

In recent years, the government has increased age and income requirements for certain groups of immigrants, specifically as an effort to cut down on an influx of young Muslim women bound for arranged marriages here. Policy makers say they are concerned about an estimated 600,000 immigrants already in the Netherlands who do not speak proper Dutch. Poor housing and high unemployment among minority groups is contributing to ethnic tensions in some of the country's largest cities, where incidents of violence against Jews and homosexuals have raised new concerns.

Dutch officials deny that the film "To the Netherlands" - or the new law for that matter - is intended to discourage further Muslim immigration. But they insist that they want all applicants to wonder whether they would fit into one of the world's most permissive societies.

"This notion that we want to shock Muslims, that is complete nonsense," said Maud Bredero, a spokeswoman for Rita Verdonk, the immigration minister. "They don't need to agree in their hearts with homosexuality, but we ask them to respect other people's rights. This is a free country."

The film indulges in a dose of Dutch frankness. Besides the snippets on homosexuality and nudity, it features a run-down neighborhood largely populated by foreigners, plus interviews with immigrants who do not always describe the Dutch in flattering terms, calling them at one point "cold" and "distant."

The film warns of traffic jams, integration problems, unemployment and even possible flooding in a country largely below sea level. Some immigrant success stories are showcased, but one newspaper joked that the tourist board would give the whole production a thumbs down.

"This is not meant to make fun of ourselves or the people who want to come here," Bredero said. "But people do need to know what kind of country they are coming to. You have to know a little about the values here, like the fact that men and women have the same rights."

Well aware that simply watching a naked woman on film, for example, is prohibited by law in some countries, the Dutch authorities have created a second version of the film, minus bare breasts and gay kisses.

"Someone from Iran doesn't need to order the tape with the gays and the topless woman," Bredero explained. "They'll get an edited version."

For her part, Hirsi Ali says she cannot understand why the film has become controversial, comparing it to all of the consumer warning signs one finds in the United States.

"When I was at Barney's in New York recently, there was a little board in front of the escalator, 'Watch out, you might fall.' This film has that kind of message," she said, explaining that some have probably never met a homosexual or seen a nude beach. "It's for those who don't know."

Thursday, March 09, 2006

Our generation

"Tribal workers"
(Borrowed from today's Financial Times, European Edition - please don't sue me)

Today's generation of high-earning professionals maintain that their personal fulfillment comes from their jobs and the hours they work. They should grow up, says Thomas Barlow.

A friend of mine recently met a young American woman who was studying on a Rhodes Scholarship at Oxford. She already had two degrees from top US universities, had worked as a lawyer and as a social worker in the US, and somewhere along the way had acquired a black belt in kung fu.

Now, however, her course at Oxford was coming to an end and she was thoroughly angst-ridden about what to do next.

Her problem was no ordinary one. She couldn't decide whether she should make a lot of money as a corporate lawyer/management consultant, devote herself to charity work helping battered wives in disadvantaged communities, or go to Hollywood to work as a stunt double in kung fu films.

What most struck my friend was not the disparity of this woman's choices, but the earnestness and bad grace with which she ruminated on them. It was almost as though she begrudged her own talents, opportunities and freedom - as though the world had treated her unkindly by forcing her to make such a hard choice.

Her case is symptomatic of our times. In recent years, there has grown up a culture of discontent among the highly educated young, something that seems to flare up, especially, when people reach their late 20s and early 30s. It arises not from frustration caused by lack of opportunity, as may have been true in the past, but from an excess of possibilities.

Most theories of adult developmental psychology have a special category for those in their late 20s and early 30s. Whereas the early to mid-20s are seen as a time to establish one's mode of living, the late 20s to early 30s are often considered a period of reappraisal.

In a society where people marry and have children young, where financial burdens accumulate early, and where job markets are inflexible, such reappraisals may not last long. But when people manage to remain free of financial or family burdens, and where the perceived opportunities for alternative careers are many, the reappraisal is likely to be angst-ridden and long lasting.

Among no social group is this more true than the modern, international, professional elite: that tribe of young bankers, lawyers, consultants and managers for whom financial, familial, personal, corporate and (increasingly) national ties have become irrelevant.

Often they grew up in one country, were educated in another, and are now working in a third. They are independent, well paid, and enriched by experiences that many of their parents could only dream of. Yet, by their late 20s, many carry a sense of disappointment: that for all their opportunities, freedoms and achievements, life has not delivered quite what they had hoped.

At the heart of this disillusionment lies a new attitude towards work. The idea has grown up, in recent years, that work should not be just a means to an end a way to make money, support a family, or gain social prestige - but should provide a rich and fulfilling experience in and of itself.

Jobs are no longer just jobs; they are lifestyle options.

Recruiters at financial companies, consultancies and law firms have promoted this conception of work. Job advertisements promise challenge, wide experiences, opportunities for travel and relentless personal development.

Michael is a 33-year-old management consultant who has bought into this vision of late-20th century work. Intelligent and well-educated - with three degrees, including a doctorate - he works in Munich, and has a "stable, long-distance relationship" with a woman living in California. He takes 140 flights a year and works an average of 80 hours a week. Some weeks he works more than 100 hours.

When asked if he likes his job, he will say: "I enjoy what I'm doing in terms of the intellectual challenges."

Although he earns a lot, he doesn't spend much. He rents a small apartment, though he is rarely there, and has accumulated very few possessions. He justifies the long hours not in terms of wealth-acquisition, but solely as part of a "learning experience".

This attitude to work has several interesting implications, mostly to do with the shifting balance between work and non-work, employment and leisure.

Because fulfilling and engrossing work - the sort that is thought to provide the most intense learning experience - often requires long hours or captivates the imagination for long periods of time, it is easy to slip into the idea that the converse is also true: that just by working long hours, one is also engaging in fulfilling and engrossing work.

This leads to the popular fallacy that you can measure the value of your job and, therefore, the amount you are learning from it) by the amount of time you spend on it. And, incidentally, when a premium is placed on learning rather than earning, people are particularly susceptible to this form of self-deceit.

Thus, whereas in the past, when people in their 20s or 30s spoke disparagingly about nine-to-five jobs it was invariably because they were seen as too routine, too unimaginative, or too bourgeois. Now, it is simply because they don't contain enough hours.

Young professionals have not suddenly developed a distaste for leisure, but they have solidly bought into the belief that a 45-hour week necessarily signifies an unfulfilling job.

Jane, a 29-year-old corporate lawyer who works in the City of London, tells a story about working on a deal with another lawyer, a young man in his early 30s. At about 3am, he leant over the boardroom desk and said: Isn't this great? This is when I really love my job."

What most struck her about the remark was that the work was irrelevant (she says it was actually rather boring); her colleague simply liked the idea of working late. "It's as though he was validated, or making his life important by this," she says.

Unfortunately, when people can convince themselves that all they need do in order to lead fulfilled and happy lives is to work long hours, they can quickly start to lose reasons for their existence.

As they start to think of their employment as a lifestyle, fulfilling and rewarding of itself - and in which the reward is proportional to hours worked - people rapidly begin to substitute work for other aspects of their lives.

Michael, the management consultant, is a good example of this phenomenon. He is prepared to trade (his word) not just goods and time for the experience afforded by his work, but also a substantial measure of commitment in his personal relationships. In a few months, he is being transferred to San Francisco, where he will move in with his girlfriend. But he's not sure that living in the same house is actually going to change the amount of time he spends on his relationship. "Once I move over, my time involvement on my relationship will not change significantly. My job takes up most of my time and pretty much dominates what I do, when, where and how I do it," he says.

Moreover, the reluctance to commit time to a relationship because they are learning so much, and having such an intense and fulfilling time at work is compounded, for some young professionals, by a reluctance to have a long-term relationship at all. Today, by the time someone reaches 30, they could easily have had three or four jobs in as many different cities - which is not, as it is often portrayed, a function of an insecure global job-market, but of choice.

Robert is 30 years old. He has three degrees and has worked on three continents. He is currently working for the United Nations in Geneva. For him, the most significant deterrent when deciding whether to enter into a relationship is the likely transient nature of the rest of his life.

"What is the point in investing all this emotional energy and exposing myself in a relationship, if I am leaving in two months, or if I do not know what I am doing next year?" he says.

Such is the character of the modern, international professional, at least throughout his or her 20s. Spare time, goods and relationships, these are all willingly traded for the exigencies of work. Nothing is valued so highly as accumulated experience. Nothing is neglected so much as commitment.

With this work ethic - or perhaps one should call it a professional development ethic" - becoming so powerful, the globally mobile generation now in its late 20s and early 30s has garnered considerable professional success.

At what point, though, does the experience-seeking end? Kathryn is a successful American academic, 29, who bucked the trend of her generation: she recently turned her life round for someone else. She moved to the UK, specifically, to be with a man, a decision that she says few of her contemporaries understood.

"We're not meant to say: 'I made this decision for this person. Today, you're meant to do things for yourself. If you're willing to make sacrifices for others - especially if you're a woman - that's seen as a kind of weakness. I wonder, though, is doing things for yourself really empowerment, or is liberty a kind of trap?" she says.

For many, it is a trap that is difficult to break out of, not least because they are so caught up in a culture of professional development. And spoilt for choice, some like the American Rhodes Scholar no doubt become paralysed by their opportunities, unable to do much else in their lives, because they are so determined not to let a single one of their chances slip.

If that means minimal personal commitments well into their 30s, so be it. "Loneliness is better than boredom" is Jane's philosophy. And, although she knows "a lot of professional single women who would give it all up if they met a "rich man to marry", she remains far more concerned herself about finding fulfilment at work.

"I am constantly questioning whether I am doing the right thing here," she says. "There's an eternal search for a more challenging and satisfying option, a better lifestyle. You always feel you're not doing the right thing, always feel as if you should be striving for another goal," she says.

Jane, Michael, Robert and Kathryn grew up as part of a generation with fewer social constraints determining their futures than has been true for probably any other generation in history. They were taught at school that when they grew up they could "do anything", "be anything". It was an idea that was reinforced by popular culture, in films, books and television.

The notion that one can do anything is clearly liberating. But life without constraints has also proved a recipe for endless searching, endless questioning of aspirations. It has made this generation obsessed with self-development and determined, for as long as possible, to minimise personal commitments in order to maximise the options open to them.

One might see this as a sign of extended adolescence. Eventually, they will be forced to realise that living is as much about closing possibilities as it is about creating them.

Wednesday, March 08, 2006

Nestan's greetings from Georgia

Following Bibi's example, Nestan has requested to post her greetings on the blog and some pictures from gorgeous rocky Georgia. Nestan - I kept my promise!

and Jens - I'm still employed, and I still post - the secret is that I type quickly and email my posts directly to the blog. Thanks for your recent concern :)

Cheers,

Val

Meeting the new EPAists

Greetings amigos and amigas!

Being in contact with a current EPA student, I was informed that Christine Neuhold suggested that a meeting of EPA2005 and EPA2006 be organized in June 2006. She suggested to have this meeting during a dinner or drinks on 9 June prior to the officla UM Alumni Day on 10 June. However no final decision has been taken so far. I will keep you all updated regarding this opportunity (depending how I'm being updated by Maastricht contact).

And to boost your EPA2005 pride, our class of '05 is still very much praised for its solidarity and unity.

Cheers to you all - it's almost weekend, peeps!

Direct from rainy and grey Brussels,

Val